Almost 600 British-based Emirates staff have reportedly been warned of the need to “consider reducing the size of the UK workforce”.
Quarantines, border controls and other travel restrictions has left passenger demand for air travel “extremely subdued”, according to an internal email seen by The Telegraph.
“We have to reduce the scale of the operation in order to protect our cash flow and safeguard our business, to ensure that we have a viable future,” the staff correspondence read.
A spokesman for the Dubai-based long-haul carrier declined to comment on how many jobs were at risk.
Emirates announced in July that 9,000 of its 60,000 global workforce were under threat.
A spokesman for the airline said: “Covid-19 has had an unprecedented impact on our business.
“While we have restarted operations wherever it is safe and commercially viable, our operations footprint today is significantly smaller than before and it will take time for us to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
“Regretfully this means that we’ve had to re-size our workforce in line with our reduced operational requirements, resulting in redundancies across all markets, including in the UK.
“Our people have always been a significant factor to our success so this is not an action that we take lightly.
“We continue to take every possible action to keep our colleagues and customers safe, reduce costs, restore revenue streams, and preserve jobs.”
The airline restored flights to more than half its pre-pandemic network in August and pans to serve 85 destinations this month.