COVID-19 pandemic: Helloworld, Flight Centre slash  jobs, pay

Helloworld has been forced to slash its workforce due to the coronavirus pandemic, while Flight Centre is in a trading halt.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner Picture: Liam Kidston.

Helloworld Travel has been forced to slash its workforce due to the coronavirus pandemic, standing down 1300 staff and rendering another 275 employees redundant.

Meanwhile, Flight Centre has gone into a trading halt ahead of cutting the salaries of its senior leadership team in half and suspending the payment of its 40c-a-share interim dividend, due next month, in a bid to preserve cash.

With operations throughout the world, Flight Centre said it had been forced to temporarily close some non-essential businesses as well as some shopfronts to deal with the pandemic. “This means that we cannot open some of our shops and that we are effectively unable to offer you many of our products, particularly international airfares,” managing director Graham Turner said.

Flight Centre said the trading suspension was requested as it worked on a more detailed ASX announcement and a comprehensive response to the unprecedented travel and trading restrictions that governments are implementing to slow the spread of coronavirus.

It said it was in talks with landlords, suppliers, vendors, investors and banks on ways to manage the financial impact of the precipitous drop in travel.

“We have been heartened by recent government announcements, particularly in the United Kingdom where the government has outlined 80 per cent wage subsidies for affected workers,” Mr Turner said.

Webjet remains in a trading halt while the listed Experience Co on Monday said it would suspend all its operations across Australia and New Zealand including reef tours, skydiving and hot air ballooning, and had stood down some of its permanent staff.

Helloworld’s shares fell as much as 12 per cent as the company revealed that the cost of the 275 redundancies would ­affect the business by $1.4m.

The standing down of 1300 workers, some 65 per cent of its workforce, will begin from March 24 for an initial period of 10 weeks until May 31.

Remaining Helloworld staff would be offered reduced working hours that would be further assessed depending on work volumes.

“Given the rapid de-escalation of international and now domestic travel, demand for our services has declined and is very unlikely to show any signs of recovery in the next four to six months,” Helloworld said in a statement.

Helloworld chief executive Andrew Burnes will not take a salary for the next 3½ months while direct reports to the CEO will take a further pay cut equating to a reduction of 40 per cent.

Mr Burnes could not be reached for further comment yesterday.