"Make no mistake, this is going to be a hard journey"

Air New Zealand has warned more staff could be made redundant on top of the 4,000 already lost, as the business seeks to reduce its wage bill by $150 million.

The national airline also announced it’s to increase its domestic capacity from 20 to 55 per cent in July and August.

In a memo to staff obtained by the NZ Herald, Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran said, “make no mistake, this is going to be a hard journey as we create our own playbook for the airline to emerge even better than before”.

Foran proposed a three-step program, which aims to return the airline to “healthy profits” in the next 800 days, despite the airline only being 70% of its pre-coronavirus size.

According to the E tū, Air New Zealand staff are “dismayed and angered” at the company’s announcement to cut a further $150 million from their wage bill.

E tū Head of Aviation Savage said that with initial labour cost reductions of around $370 million, cuts of a further $150 million will only increase the pain for the airline’s workers.

“Thousands of workers have only got several weeks of work left before being made redundant,” said Savage.

“The company is heavily focused on saving money and is in danger of being blinded to the importance of treating both employees and customers with respect.”

Savage added that the real danger now is that the company may look to use the threat of outsourcing work to downgrade the remaining jobs.

“We will meet with union members as soon as possible to find out in detail how they want to respond. They have lost trust in senior management because of the way they were treated in the first round.

“The company is facing a big challenge, but now is not the time to repeat their past mistakes. To rebuild better, we need to keep these vital workers in jobs.”