Finnair starts negotiations to cut some 200 redundant jobs

Finnair starts change negotiations with its employees to discuss plans to reorganise the company through personnel redundancies and changing job descriptions. The plan is linked to Finnair’s new strategy published on 7 September which focuses on restoring Finnair’s profitability. The plan targets to build Finnair’s different functions to meet the size of the company and the changes in Finnair’s operating environment. Finnair will be operating with a smaller capacity than before the pandemic.   

Up to approximately 200 jobs at Finnair could be reduced globally if the plan is implemented. About 120 of the redundancies would be in Finland where the negotiations concern approximately 770 employees working in executive, manager and expert roles. Finnair has a total of approximately 5,300 employees globally. The negotiations do not concern crew or other operative employees.

Finnair CEO Topi Manner says: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the closed Russian airspace have impacted our business significantly. Thus, in addition to other actions to restore Finnair’s profitability, we have to discuss measures that are, unfortunately, the most painful ones for our employees”.

A social support programme for those who could lose their work will be discussed in the negotiations. Finnair offered a social support programme to help in re-employment in 2020 for those who then lost their job at Finnair due to the situation caused by the pandemic. The programme gained good results.

The change negotiations will start on 5 October and are estimated to take at least 6 weeks. Finnair is currently discussing with all its stakeholders about changes needed to restore its profitability.  This includes discussions with its employees on changes in employment terms which would reduce unit costs.