MANILA - Philippine Airlines on Thursday said it was no longer necessary to retrench more workers to return the carrier to profitability.
"There is no need for PAL to cut more employees. In fact, we will hire additional pilots and 1,600 flight attendant for our re-fleeting program," Ramon S. Ang, president of PAL said.
PAL had entered a $7 billion deal with Airbus to purchase 54 aircrafts over the next three years.
At end-March, PAL's workforce numbered 4,803, of which 463 were pilots; 1,626, cabin crew; and 2,714 ground employees.
Before the San Miguel group bought into PAL, the flag carrier's previous president, Jaime Bautista, said the airline would lay off 500 more people on top of the 2,400 employees retrenched after ground handling, ticket reservations and catering were outsourced.
The second round of layoffs was supposed to trim the number of employees in human resources, IT and logistics.
PAL had tapped SkyKitchen Philippines Inc. for its catering, SkyLogistics Philippines Inc. for ground handling, and SPi Global for call center reservations.
The airline had allocated about P2.5 billion in severance benefits for affected workers.
Based on the October 29, 2010 order of Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, affected workers will receive separation pay equivalent to 125 percent of their monthly salary for every year of service, a P50,000 gratuity pay, a 100 percent conversion of unused vacation and sick leaves, trip pass, and other non-cash benefits.
Malacanang also granted an additional P50,000 gratuity pay.
http://www.interaksyon.com/business/41890/pal-ditches-second-wave-of-retrenchments
