Royal Jordanian (RJ, Amman Queen Alia) and the General Union for Air Transport and Tourism (GUATT) signed a collective contract on February 9, allowing the airline's employees to apply for "voluntary redundancies" until February 29. The agreement, signed by RJ's President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Stefan Pichler and union President Yousef Qannab, allows employees who apply for the voluntary scheme to receive half of a month's salary for every year of service at the airline.
During the contract signing, Pichler said that the agreement is part of the airline's restructuring plan as it looks to increase profits, which included reducing staff numbers. The CEO also expressed his appreciation to all of Royal Jordanian's employees, and his pride in their "professionalism, expertise and keenness to serve [the company's] passengers."
Qannab expressed GUATT's keenness to ensure that all employees applying for dismissal receive all their rights. He also expressed his appreciation for RJ employees' "immense efforts in all locations to present the best services for passengers."
RJ embarked on a five-year turnaround plan in 2017 to reduce years of accumulated losses and repair its balance sheet by 2021. The strategy includes growing its network and fleet, increasing capacity on existing routes, launching fare promotions and expanding the activities of loyalty programmes.
The airline's recent lacklustre financial performance has been the main driver for the airline's CEO to seek further improvements in the carrier's ongoing turnaround strategy with voluntary dismissals. In the last financial reports filed for Q3 2019, the airline's profit before tax for the nine months ending on September 30 had increased to JOD24.4 million dinar (USD34 million) up from JOR10.2 million dinar (USD14.41 million) during the same period in 2018. By the end of that year, the small profit had become a JOR5.9 million dinar (USD8.33 million) loss, reflecting the harsher market conditions in Q4, which will also affect the airline's yet to be published full-year report for 2019.
Last year, Pichler talked about finalising plans to renew the airline's narrow-body and regional fleet, as well as a strategic partnership with another carrier. Still, there has been no news from Amman on either matter for months. It is, however, launching a 3x weekly service to Antalya from May 23, as part of its network expansion plans.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, RJ operates a fleet of 25 aircraft, consisting of five A319-100s, six A320-200s, two A321-200s, seven B787-8s, two E175LRs, two E195ARs, and a single A310-300(F). Its route network is spread across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
