(Reuters) – Emirates Group is planning to cut about 30,000 jobs to reduce costs amid the coronavirus outbreak, which will bring down its number of employees by about 30% from more than 105,000 at the end of March.
The company is also considering speeding up the planned retirement of its A380 fleet, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.
An Emirates spokeswoman said that no public announcement has been made yet by the company regarding “redundancies at the airline”, but that the company is conducting a review of “costs and resourcing against business projections”.
“Any such decision will be communicated in an appropriate fashion. Like any responsible business would do, our executive team has directed all departments to conduct a thorough review of costs and resourcing against business projections,” the spokeswoman said.
Emirates, one of the world’s biggest long-haul airlines, said earlier this month that it will raise debt to help itself through the coronavirus pandemic, and may have to take tougher measures as it faces the most difficult months in its history.
The state-owned airline, which suspended regular passenger flights in March due to the virus outbreak that has shattered global travel demand, had said that a recovery in travel was at least 18 months away.
It reported a 21% rise in profit for its financial year ending March 31, but said the pandemic had hit its fourth-quarter performance.
It said it would tap banks to raise debt in its first quarter to lessen the impact of the virus on cash flows.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Editing by Catherine Evans and Jan Harvey)
FILE PHOTO: An Emirates Airbus A380 airliner lands at Nice international airport, France
FILE PHOTO: A traffic light is seen in front of a logo of General Electric at the company’s plant in Birr
(Reuters) – The U.S. government is considering whether to stop General Electric Co from continuing to supply engines for a new Chinese passenger jet, according to people familiar with the matter, casting uncertainty over China’s efforts to enter the civil aviation market.
The potential restriction on the engine sales – possibly along with limits on other components for Chinese commercial aircraft such as flight control systems made by Honeywell International Inc – is the latest move in the battle between the world’s two largest economies over trade and technology.
The issue is expected to come up at an interagency meeting about how strictly to limit exports of U.S. technology to China on Thursday and at another meeting with members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet set for Feb. 28, sources said.
The White House and the U.S. Commerce Department, which issues licenses for such exports, declined to comment, as did a GE spokeswoman. The departments of Defense, State, Energy and Treasury did not respond to requests for comment.
For years, the United States has supported American companies’ business with China’s budding civil aviation industry.
The government has provided licenses that allow those companies to sell engines, flight control systems and other components for China’s first large commercial aircraft, the COMAC C919. The narrow-body jet has already engaged in test flights and is expected to go into service next year. COMAC is an acronym for Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd.
But the Trump administration is weighing whether to deny GE’s latest license request to provide the CFM LEAP-1C engine for the C919, people familiar with the matter said, though GE has received licenses for the LEAP engines since 2014 and was last granted one in March 2019.
The CFM LEAP engine is a joint venture between GE and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines. The proposal to halt the deliveries of the engines was also reported on Saturday by the Wall Street Journal.
Safran did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and French government officials could not be reached for comment.
Aside from aircraft engines, flight control systems are up for discussion at the February meetings. Honeywell International has received licenses to export flight control systems to COMAC for the C919 for about a decade, and one was approved in early 2020, according to a person familiar with the matter.
But future permission for such sales for COMAC’s passenger aircrafts may be up for debate. Honeywell also has been seeking a license for flight control technology to participate in the development of the C929, China’s planned wide-body jet venture with Russia, the person said.
The flight control system operates moving mechanical parts, such as the wing flaps, from the cockpit.
A spokeswoman for Honeywell declined to comment.
An aerospace trade group official said his organization would like to weigh in on any policy shifts.
“If there are any changes, we would hope they would engage with us, as they’ve done before,” said Remy Nathan, vice president for international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association.
At the heart of the debate over a possible crackdown on the sale of U.S. parts to China’s nascent aircraft industry is whether such shipments would fuel the rise of a serious competitor to U.S.-based Boeing Co or boost China’s military capabilities.
People familiar with the matter said some administration officials are concerned the Chinese could reverse engineer some items, though others say an abundance of LEAP engines in China has not brought that about to date.
If the United States were to move ahead with the measure, one person familiar with the matter said, China could retaliate by ordering more planes from Airbus SE , rather than crisis-hit Boeing, which relies on China for a fourth its deliveries.
The Trump administration’s meetings about technology issues also are set to include a discussion of whether to impose further restrictions on suppliers to Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, which is on a U.S. trade blacklist.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Alexandra Alper; additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
FILE PHOTO: China’s home-grown C919 passenger jet taxis after landing on its maiden flight at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai
BERLIN (Reuters) – Luxury German carmaker Daimler <DDAIF> and Volvo Cars, owned by China’s Geely, are considering cooperating to cut the costs of developing combustion engines, a magazine reported on Sunday, citing unnamed company sources.
The Automobilwoche weekly cited a Volvo manager as saying there were initial talks with Daimler, but no concrete plans, while a company spokesman said it was too early to talk about firm projects, although it was not excluding anybody.
A Daimler spokesman said the company’s cooperation with Geely, which owns a 10% stake in the German carmaker, was developing in a positive way, but declined to comment further.
Global tariffs, accelerated by a trade war between China and the United States, as well as higher investment requirements for electric and autonomous vehicles, are forcing carmakers to seek new ways to cut and share costs.
In October, Volvo said it would merge its engine development and manufacturing assets with those of Geely, creating a division to supply in-house brands and also potentially others with next-generation combustion and hybrid engines.
The Automobilwoche said this new division would start operating by the end of March, which could be a possible starting point for cooperation with Daimler, while a further step could be a partnership to develop electric power trains.
Geely and Daimler have said they plan to build the next generation of Smart electric cars in China through a joint venture and the two companies are also cooperating on a premium ride-hailing service in China.
Geely bought Volvo Cars in 2010 from Ford Motor Co <F.N>, allowing the Swedish brand to operate on an arms-length basis. But in recent years, it has deepened cooperation between the two brands.
Volvo already supplies engines to some Geely-branded vehicles, sharing technology through Geely’s Lynk brand. Both companies share and develop common vehicle platforms.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson and Georg Merziger; editing by Jason Neely)
HAMBURG (Reuters) – Airbus <EADSY> is considering producing a hybrid plane by 2035 as it strives for a low emission aircraft, its chief executive said.
CEO Guillaume Faury, speaking to journalists on Thursday evening in comments embargoed for Friday, said that the plans were at an early stage.
(Reporting by Jan C. Schwartz; Writing Tom Sims; Editing by Riham Alkousaa)
FILE PHOTO: The Airbus logo is pictured at Airbus headquarters in Blagnac near Toulouse
