RYANAIR is axing 12 routes and cutting 400 jobs from low-cost rival Buzz, which it is taking over from April 1.
All Buzz flights will be grounded “for the month of April 2003, at least”. A decision will be made, soon after, on whether to restart flying as planned on May 1, or “close Buzz altogether”.
Ryanair said the financial position of Buzz was “extremely precarious”, and it was losing around one million euros a week, around £678,000.
“The airline, as a by-product of its history as Air UK, is heavily overstaffed. Buzz carries less than 3,000 passengers per employee compared to Ryanair’s figure of almost 10,000 passengers per employee.”
The 400 redundancies will include about 25% of Buzz’s pilots, up to 80% of its cabin crew, all cargo and group sales staff and around half of Buzz’s ground operations staff at Stansted airport in Essex.
The Buzz routes to go are Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, Marseilles, Toulon, Tours, Bergerac, Caen, Dijon, Geneva, Chambery, Brest and Almeira.
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