Air NZ cuts 380 jobs

6:00 pm - By DANIEL RIORDAN aviation writer

About 380 Air New Zealand staff, 45 of them in New Zealand, have taken voluntary redundancy.

The moves are part of the company's integration of Ansett Australia, acquired last June, and its plans to trim a combined workforce of 23,000 to remove functional overlaps and bolster competitiveness.

Although the airline says that is the end of its downsizing, unions believe more layoffs will follow.

The airline offered thousands of its workers on both sides of the Tasman voluntary redundancy before Christmas.

Air New Zealand said at the time that while all staff had been offered redundancy, not all would be eligible. Only workers in parts of the company where managers had identified duplication would be allowed to go.

The offer closed at the end of January, and of the 627 applications across the group, about 60 per cent were accepted, said Air NZ spokesman Cameron Hill.

Ninety staff in New Zealand applied, and 45 were accepted.

Mr Hill said most of the redundancies were in non-operational areas, including human resources, IT and clerical services.

It is understood the redundancies were made on the basis of length of service.

Staff who had been with the airline more than a year were offered six weeks' pay plus two extra weeks for every subsequent year, up to a maximum of 54 weeks' salary.

Mr Hill said further redundancies were not being considered and that the airline group was a growth story. He cited Ansett's ordering of four new aircraft this month, which will require extra staff.



The latest moves follow Ansett Australia's decision in January to wipe 186 positions in Melbourne and Adelaide, relocating most of those staff to IT jobs in Mexico and the rest to accountancy work in Auckland.

Those changes will be completed within 12 to 18 months.

Late last year the company decided to transfer 46 head office jobs from Melbourne to Auckland.

A number of middle-ranking and high-level executives have been laid off, as chief executive Gary Toomey brings in former Qantas colleagues to build the kind of executive team he believes is needed to take on competitors growing bigger and more aggressive.

That team includes former Qantas deputy chief financial officer Adam Moroney as chief financial officer, former Qantas operations manager Kevin Turnbull as group general manager of business performance enhancement, Jochen Bonitz, formerly chief executive of internet company Pacific International (Australia), as group general manager e-commerce, George Frazis, former vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, as executive general manager strategy, and former Australian Department of Transport deputy secretary Peter Harris as general manager of government and international affairs.