Airline Asking Employees to Take Unpaid Leave Due to Coronavirus Outbreak

A Hong Kong airline is asking its employees to take unpaid leave as the company deals with the financial burden associated with the coronavirus outbreak in China.

According to the New York Post, Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Augustus Tang asked the carrier’s 27,000 employees Wednesday via video message to take three weeks of unpaid leave due to the company’s ongoing financial crisis.

Tang said Cathay Pacific’s plunging revenue has caused a situation as grave as the 2009 financial crisis, with the carrier announcing a 90-percent reduction in flight capacity to mainland China Tuesday.

In addition, Cathay Pacific has been forced to cut 30 percent of its worldwide flight capacity for the next two months. As a result, employees are being asked to take unpaid leave between March 1 and June 30 to “preserve cash” during a difficult time.

“I am appealing to each and everyone one of you to help,” Tang said in the video message.

In the United States, airlines have started canceling all flights to China after the Department of State raised its travel advisory to Level 4 due to the coronavirus outbreak and issued a “do not travel” warning.

A new study also found that visits from Chinese nationals to the United States could drop by as much as 28 percent this year.