Korean Air leadership takes pay cuts, looks for further asset sales

All Korean Air executives will forgo part of their salaries in response to the worsening business environment due to the Covid-19 virus outbreak.

Korean Air announced that salaries of its executive vice presidents and above will be reduced by 50 per cent senior vice presidents by 40 per cent, and managing vice presidents by 30 per cent, starting from April. Korean Air will also take other self-rescue measures to improve its financial structure.

In addition to the previously announced sale of idle assets, such as the Songhyeon-dong site, the airline will actively seek to raise funds by selling other non-core assets.

An internal emergency response committee and a special task force team has been established to evaluate and respond to the current crisis caused by Covid-19.

Also, while striving to reduce operation costs, the airline is proactively exploring business opportunities such as boosting cargo operations by utilising passenger jets as freighters.

Korean Air is currently offering services to 21 destinations, having grounded the majority of its aircraft, including all ten Airbus A380 superjumbos.

airBaltic

President and chief executive of airBaltic, Martin Gauss, has announced that he will give up his salary during the crisis thus supporting the company in coping with this extraordinary situation.

Gauss said: “Starting from April until we can start scheduled operations again, I will receive no salary and members of the board, the supervisory board and managers have taken already a volunteer pay cut of 20 per cent from their salary.”

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has forced airBaltic to ground all flights. The carrier is currently working on restarting its scheduled operations once it is possible.