| Spanair will fire 1100 employees and will ground 15 MD's
(AP:MADRID, Spain) Spanish airline Spanair said Wednesday it is cutting a third of its jobs and nine loss-making routes to survive reduced consumer demand and rising fuel prices.
The airline, which is 100 percent owned by Scandinavian operator SAS, said it is cutting 1,100 jobs and dropping 15 aircraft from its fleet of 60 to make savings of around 90 million euros ($144 million) by the end of 2009.
The carrier is to stop flying routes from Madrid to Vienna, Munich, Girona, Granada, Oviedo and San Sebastian, as well as Barcelona-Zurich, Bilbao-Malaga and Bilbao-Jerez.
Job losses are to be negotiated with unions over the next 10 weeks to determine how many redundancies will be voluntary and how posts will in future be shared by employees hired part-time. Job cuts will affect all levels, including management, pilots and flight crews, the airline said.
"Spanair is capable of leading a strategy to regulate the excess capacity which afflicts the market while at the same time maintaining its position as the first Spanish airline operating out of Barcelona and the second major airline to fly from Madrid," Marcus Hedblom, Spanair director general said in the statement.
Spanair is the first airline in Spain to announce job, fleet and route cuts as the economy weakens in the wake of a real estate slump prompted by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States. | 
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