London-based firm Flight Options Limited, which traded as Kiss Flights, officially ceased trading. Flight Options was launched in 1995 offering flights to various Mediterranean destinations. Kiss was set up as a seat-only operator in 2008 following XL Leisure Group‘s collapse.

In all, 13 travel firms have gone bust in the UK this year as a result of the recession, belt-tightening by travellers and the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that threw European travel into turmoil. That compares with 33 last year.

Sources:

• BBC News
• Sky News

Related Websites:

• BMI announces 600 job losses due to worst recession ever.
• 1700 BA cabin crew members pushed out without parachutes.
• Japan Airline to cut 6800 jobs.
• India’s domestic airlines to cut 2500 jobs.
• Continental Airlines sacks 500 agents.
• Airline Crunch Victims Graveyard.

Mexico’s biggest airline, Mexicana de Aviacion, has filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to reach a deal with trade unions on cost cutting. The heavily-indebted airline said flights would continue while it restructured its finances. Mexicana had proposed deep pay cuts for pilots and crew, as well as a 40% reduction in the workforce.

Mexicana is the biggest airline to go bankrupt since Japan Airlines. It does not come as a big shock: Mexican airlines have faced tough conditions lately, battling the deepest recession in the Americas.

Source: The Economist

Related Website Links:

• BMI announces 600 job losses due to worst recession ever.
• 1700 BA cabin crew members pushed out without parachutes.
• Japan Airline to cut 6800 jobs.
• India’s domestic airlines to cut 2500 jobs.
• Continental Airlines sacks 500 agents.
• Airline Crunch Victims Graveyard.

British Midlands (BMI) has announced plans to lay off 600 employees and axe five routes as part of a restructuring effort aimed at returning the company to profit.  Most of the job losses at the British airline – now fully owned by German flag carrier Lufthansa – will affect cabin crew and other front-line “operational” staff.  BMI will also cease to operate outbound services to Tel Aviv, Brussels, Kiev and Aleppo as of next January, with flights to Amsterdam being axed in March.  The loss of its Tel Aviv service, which was only launched two years ago, will come as a particularly heavy blow to Heathrow’s second largest carrier.

Announcing the loss of 600 jobs from a workforce of just 4,400, the airline said;

The move takes place against a background where the airline industry is facing the challenges of a downturn in demand and the worst recession in the UK since records began.

Total losses = 600

Source: Cheapflights.co.uk

BA posted record losses of £401m last year, and £148m for the first quarter this year. Its chief executive Willie Walsh says the airline, hit by the slump in business class travel, is in a “fight for survival”.  The airline said it was making 1000 full-time cabin crew staff at Heathrow redundant, and had agreed to reduce the hours of 3000 more workers, equivalent to cutting 1700 full-time positions in total.

BA said in a statement today,

British Airways is currently not profitable and we expect to record a significant loss for the second consecutive year – the first time that has happened in our history. Revenues are down, so we must reduce costs to restore profitability. Without changes, we will lose more money with every month that passes. It is essential that we make ourselves more efficient if we are to ensure our long-term survival.

Total losses = 1700

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Source: BBC News

Wikipedia: British Airways

After losing more than 1 billion dollars in the April – June quarter, Japan Airlines will slash 6800 jobs and pursue a tie-up with a foreign carrier in a bid to return to profit in the face of severe turbulence unleashed by the global recession. The job cuts, which will shrink JAL’s workforce by 14 percent, are part of an emergency restructuring plan being prepared by Asia’s largest carrier, which is seeking financial aid from the government.

Total losses = 6800

Wikipedia: Japan Airlines (JAL)

Washington State University layoffs 360 full-time jobs and three academic programs to reduce its budget by $54 million, or more than 10%, over the next two years.

Irish low-cost Ryanair cuts 650 jobs in Ireland, blaming the move on government hikes in taxes amid a deep recession in the eurozone member nation.

Penske Logistics to cut 100 jobs.
Delphi closes Vandalia plant, cuts 116 jobs.
Norske Skog plans to cut 600 jobs.

Bank of America layoffs 81 in Tampa.
University Hospitals in Iowa will layoff 130 employees.
Dean Foods closes PET Dairy operations, cuts 120 jobs.
Lockheed Martin cuts 750 jobs.
Jostens layoffs 185 employees.

Michelin to cut 2800 jobs in France through early retirement and voluntary redundancies in the next three years, sparking concern from the government.
Evonik Cyro layoffs 35 workers.

The slowdown in spending is still finding new victims – most recently MySpace. The social networking giant currently owned by media conglomerate News Corp. will be losing around 30% of its US workforce over the next few weeks, which aquates to about 400 employees.

Total losses in the past 24 hours = 4655

Total losses = +- 20000

• Hunton & Williams has announced that 23 associates and counsel and 64 staff members have been laid off. The cuts, announced in a firmwide e-mail distributed Thursday morning, are spread across practice areas and offices. They affect two percent of the Richmond-based firm’s 1000 lawyers and six percent of its staff. Today’s cuts are Hunton’s first round of layoffs since the start of the downturn.
• Faced with huge losses, rising debts, India’s second largest air carrier by market share, Jet Airways has axed its 120 foreign airhostesses from its 3000 cabin crew in a bid to save on costs.  This new round of axing cabin crew, comes close on the heels of Jet Airways terminating contracts of about 60 cabin crew, who were on probation, and another 50 employees who have superannuated, early this month as the airline moved to cut cost and stay trim. See Related Link: India’s domestic airlines to cut 2500 jobs.
• In yet another sign of the troubled economic times, a well-known intellectual property boutique Fish & Richardson is laying off 35 lawyers and 85 support staff.
• MeadWestvaco Corp. is closing its beverage packaging plant in Wilmington, putting 105 people out of work, the Virginia-based company announced.
• Polish media group Agora AGOD.WA is increasing staff cuts to 400 after falling circulation and dwindling advertising revenues.
• German auto parts manufaturer Schaeffler Group KG announced that it could axe up to 4500 jobs in Germany as part of restructuing efforts to save 250 million euros (US$340 million) as the global economic crisis cuts deeply into auto sales.
• Toledo-based Dana Holding Corp. has laid off 115 of the 280 employees working at its Fort Wayne axle plant, were in response to Chrysler LLP’s shutdown of plants that make Jeep Cherokees and Wranglers.
• ArcelorMittal officials have announced plans to layoff nearly 1000 workers at the steelmaker’s Indiana Harbor plant. The sagging economy, particularly the deep slump in auto manufacturing, has caused steep declines in demand for steel — less than a year after domestic steelmakers had recorded some of their highest revenues in history.
• After earlier layoff announcements concerning attorneys in its United States, Asia and Dubai offices, DLA Piper is now officially wielding the ax in the United Kingdom with  24 “fee-earners” and 100 support staff going.
• Freescale Semiconductor, Texas-based computer chipmaker, has decided to retrench around 250 professionals at its Bangalore centre, as the company seeks to lower its operational costs by shutting down several manufacturing units across the globe and trim its payroll.
• Seagate Technology said that it plans to cut about 1100 jobs from its workforce in a move the computer storage maker expects will reduce costs by about $125 million a year.

Total losses = 8131

Source: Layoff Tracker

Continental Airlines Inc. said that it is closing a call center in Tampa, and cutting 500 reservation agents companywide. The carrier cited a weak economy and customers’ growing preference for Web-based reservations.

Based in Downtown Houston, Texas, it is the fourth-largest airline in the US based on revenue passenger miles.

Total losses = 500

India: At least 2500 airline employees are expected to lose their jobs in next four-six months from domestic carriers that are set to post a combined loss of $2 billion in 2008-09, according to airline executives and analysts. This is about 8% of the total workforce employed by private carriers.  Jet Airways (India) Ltd’s experience, domestic carriers are not going for large-scale retrenchments at one go. Instead, they are taking employees off payrolls in phases and small lots.

Total losses = 2500