Flight Centre Travel Group is to make a third of its global workforce temporarily or permanently redundant as it battles the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The high street and corporate travel agent employs 20,000 people. In total 6,000 sales and support staff will be stood down, 3,800 of which will be in Australia.
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Further reductions could be required, Flight Centre said. Senior executives and board members will see their pay halve until the end of the financial year.
In a statement Flight Centre said: “These never-before-seen restrictions, which have forced airlines to ground their fleets and heavily reduce their flight schedules, have virtually halted travel demand and led to the stoppage of the vast proportion of work that Flight Centre’s people previously carried out.”