Air Serbia is forced to lay off employees and cut salaries

Photo: Tanjug/Dragan Kujundzic

National carrier Air Serbia is forced to reduce the number of employees and cut salaries, it has been confirmed for Telegraf Biznis from that company.

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Earlier, the domestic carrier issued a call for voluntary application for termination of employment, that involves payment of incentive severance benefits.

"Air Serbia, as well as other airlines in the world, is suffering the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, which has significantly reduced air traffic. Given such a long period of business disruption, the company is no longer able to withstand the existing level of costs, therefore it is forced to, in addition to other initiatives launched so far to reduce costs, start the process of reducing the number of employees as well as salaries," they said for our portal.

As the company further points out, as a responsible employer, they wish to provide the best possible conditions for employees who are declared redundant.

Employees who get declared as redundant based on their voluntary request will be provided with benefits and a greater scope of rights than is prescribed by the Labor Law.

The situation in the passenger air traffic industry has been extremely difficult globally since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March, the Serbian airline points out. As they say, there is practically no airline that has not been affected, and Air Serbia, unfortunately, is no exception in that sense.

"For eight months, Air Serbia has been, with exceptional efforts, rationalization of operations and reduction of costs, finding ways to amortize to a certain extent the consequences of the global crisis in air traffic. Also, from the very beginning, the company set saving jobs as its priority, along with safety and health of employees," they said in Air Serbia.

Representatives of the government and relevant ministries announced several times in the past that they will not abandon Air Serbia and will help the airline get through the crisis as painlessly as possible. In addition, the importance that Air Serbia has had during the coronavirus crisis by transporting medical equipment and bringing our citizens back from abroad was emphasized.

(V.B.)