Hundreds of furloughed Flight Centre jobs on the chopping block

Thursday, 16 July 2020

Flight Centre is consulting with its furloughed staff as the company grapples with the impact of Covid-19 on the business.

Flight Centre New Zealand is consulting with furloughed staff about their future with the travel agency.

Flight Centre announced redundancies in March, when the country moved into the alert level 4 Covid-19 lockdown. At the time it had about 1200 staff and 140 shops across the country.

In April Flight Centre stood down 300 staff and closed 58 shops.

A spokeswoman said Flight Centre was consulting with a number of furloughed staff.

Flight Centre has received $9.5 million from the Government wage subsidy and extension.

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She declined to comment further about the company’s plans.

Flight Centre was also closing 428 shops in Australia by the end of July to reduce costs.

The company has received $6.5 million for 940 staff from the Government wage subsidy and a further $3m for 850 staff from the wage subsidy extension.

Staff were eligible for the wage subsidy, and Flight Centre was trying to find alternative work for them while they were stood down.

It provided all staff, including those furloughed free retraining at Yoobee with digital marketing and web design courses and at vocational training organisation, NZMA, for construction, plumbing and electrical engineering courses.

The wage subsidy scheme, that has supported nearly 2 million jobs, will end on September 1, three weeks before of the general election.

In April, Flight Centre’s Australian owner, Flight Centre Travel Group, raised A$900m (NZ$950m) in capital to help see it through the industry turmoil and uncertainty.

Earlier this week international rental car firm Avis Budget Group announced redundancies in New Zealand as it struggled to cope with the effects of Covid-19.

Avis said in a statement travel restrictions and “nervousness about domestic travel” had hit its airport business particularly hard, slowing its recovery.

Avis did not say how many jobs would be lost, however, the company employed about 800 people in New Zealand across its three rental car businesses, Avis Rent a Car, Apex Car Rentals and Budget Rent a Car.

A Government report released in June predicted tourism job losses could peak at 92,000 this year.

Economic losses from Covid-19 in the tourism sector over the next four years are estimated at $18 billion to $21b., the report says.