Air Transat to lay off 70 percent of their workforce due to coronavirus pandemic

The Montreal-based airliner said in a statement released Monday morning that over 3,600 people would be cut from their positions, including flight crews.

Some lay offs are effective immediately, while others will continue to work as per usual over the next month,

Transat executives also announced that they will be taking a paycut along with their board of directors.

“These measures have forced us to totally suspend our operations,”said Jean-Marc Eustache, Transat’s chief executive officer in the statement. “We have done this in such a way that none of our customers are stuck far from home, and we are in the process of bringing them back. We expect to have finished doing this by April 1, and we will then totally halt our flights. At the same time, in order to safeguard the company, we have unfortunately had to proceed with layoffs that affect a significant portion of our employees. We are doing this with great sadness and we hope that everyone will be able to return to work as quickly as possible.”

Transat is not the only company to feel mounting pressure from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Recently, Toronto-based airliner Porter suspended flights and laid off the majority of their 1,500 employees.

Air Canada also announced they would be laying off roughly 5,100 flight attendants.