London (AFP)

The British airline British Airways has already registered 6,000 voluntary departures, as part of its plan to cut 12,000 jobs, while the rest of its cabin crew will be set on their fate from this Friday.

"More than 6,000 of our employees have now indicated that they wish to opt for a voluntary departure," said a spokesperson for the company in a statement sent to AFP.

These are above all cabin crew, engineers or employees in airports, who had until last Monday to choose this option.

The personnel who wish to remain in the company will know their fate from this Friday. British Airways will send a letter to its employees telling them if they are keeping their jobs and with what type of contract, or if they are made redundant.

Some of those whose jobs are retained could experience changes in their working conditions and wage cuts of 20%.

The Unite union, which represents thousands of the company's workers, accused the company of showing "brutality".

The company's pilots have approved a plan providing for temporary wage cuts of 20% to limit dry layoffs to 270, the British pilots' union (Balpa) announced last week.

The company, which employs 4,300 pilots, initially planned to lay off 1,255 of them and lay off and then rehire the others on less favorable terms.

In total, the subsidiary of the airline group IAG had warned at the end of April that it was planning to lay off 12,000 people, ie a quarter of its workforce, in the face of a recovery which promises to be very slow.

Five months after the sudden halt to air traffic due to the Covid-19 pandemic, British Airways is only running 20% ​​of its flight capacity.

Its main markets, the United States and India, are closed and the sector must now deal with the quarantine imposed by the British government on travelers from Spain.

British Airways suffered an operating loss of £ 711million in the second quarter and is consuming around £ 20million of cash per day.

© 2020 AFP