Qantas and Jetstar, 2 major airline companies, have announced that they will be cutting their international flights by 90 percent due to the coronavirus.
Airlines said that the drop was in response to the extremely low demand for traveling abroad and travel restrictions that have been introduced by a number of countries all over the world to stop the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
The 2 companies also announced that they will be cutting the domestic flights by 60 percent.
In a statement that was released by Qantas, they said, “The precipitous decline in demand and resulting cuts to flying mean that the Qantas Group is confronted with a significant labor surplus across its operations.”
They added, “Travel demand is unlikely to rebound for weeks or possibly months and the impact of this will be felt across the entire workforce of 30,000 people.”
They continued, “The Qantas Group is working to manage this impact as much as possible, including through the use of paid and unpaid leave. This will be in addition to measures already announced, including three months of no pay for the CEO and Chairman, significant pay cuts for Group Executive Management and Board members, and canceling of annual bonuses and an off-market buy-back.”
People with bookings with Qantas up to May 31, 2020, who do not want to travel because of the outbreak, they can cancel their flight.
After the cancellation, they will be getting a travel voucher.
But to make that happen, applications for cancellations must be submitted to the company before March 31, 2020.
In addition to the statement that was released, Qantas said, “Customers who make a new domestic or international booking and later decide they no longer wish to travel, can cancel their flight and retain the value of the booking as a Qantas travel credit or Jetstar travel voucher.”
They added, “This applies to bookings made from 10 March 2020 until 31 March 2020 for travel before 31 May 2020.”
As of writing this blog, there have been 182,723 coronavirus cases all over the world, and 7,174 deaths have resulted from the outbreak.
According to woldometers.info, 79,883 people have recovered from the deadly virus.