Lufthansa is offering employees unpaid leave and deferring new hirings

Lufthansa is offering employees unpaid leave and deferring the hiring of new flight attendants and station personnel-even though they already started training as part of a package of measures to limit the economic effect of the coronavirus outbreak “at an early stage.” In a statement released on Wednesday, Europe’s largest airline by revenue said that it will reassess, suspend, or defer all new planned hires to a later date. It plans to suspend flight attendant and station personnel training courses starting in April and continues to consider options to expand part-time work. In administrative areas, it added, the core Lufthansa brand will reduce its project volume by 10 percent and the budget for material costs by 20 percent.

Lufthansa Group disclosed it already has grounded the equivalent of 13 long-haul aircraft across Lufthansa, Swiss, and Austrian Airlines as it canceled all services to and from mainland China through March 28 and reduced capacity to Hong Kong. The company said it plans additional frequency adjustments between Hong Kong and Frankfurt, Munich, and Zurich. The German airline group contended it is too early to estimate the earnings effect of the coronavirus outbreak, though it will comment on the matter when it releases 2019 financial results on March 19.