Philippine Airlines (PAL) plans to offer early retirement packages to its staff to cut costs and boost productivity.
PAL lost $301.4 million in the fiscal year ended 31 March, it says. The airline adds: "PAL will take decisive steps like rationalizing its workforce, realigning operations to match demand and other cost-cutting measures to survive the crisis plaguing airlines worldwide."
"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures," says PAL president Jaime Bautista. "We are reviewing our entire organisational setup. We want to make PAL lean and mean so it will be flexible enough to adapt to the new economic climate."
The carrier failed to specify how many staff would receive the early retirement package.
According to Flight's ACAS database, PAL had 7,751 employees in 2007.
In the fiscal quarter to 30 June, PAL saw its net profit fall 47% on-year to 1.7 billion Philippine pesos ($35 million).
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
