airBaltic to lay off over 200 employees

RIGA - The Latvian airline airBaltic announced on Tuesday that it would cut its workforce by 15 percent as part of a new plan to return the company to profitability by 2014, reports LETA.

"We will reduce the head count by around 15 percent in airBaltic," its German chief executive Martin Gauss told reporters at a briefing brought forward by 24 hours to prevent news of the job losses leaking to employees. More than 200 of airBaltic's 1,400 staff stand to lose their jobs.

"Certain areas will be hit harder than others where we have double functions due to things we did in the past. Not all areas are the same but we have identified the areas where there will be less people. In general it's an adjustment because in the past our employee numbers have grown too strongly," Gauss told AFP.