Only a month after landing in his role with Air New Zealand, new CEO Greg Foran is already talking about job cuts.
On Monday, the company announced Foran was taking a voluntary pay cut of around $250,000 among other measures to try and cope with the financial impact of the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
He said job losses are not off the table.
"I couldn't rule anything out at this point, because the situation is emerging," Foran told Newshub.
"We're going to work closely with our partners, all of them: unions, government, clearly reaching out to all our Air New Zealanders, and just sensibly charting a course, literally week by week, month by month, to deal with the conditions that we're now faced with."
In Monday's announcement, Air NZ also revealed it has suspended its earnings guidance due to the "unprecedented situation" that is "more significant than previously estimated".
"We've seen the Tasman quieten down quite a lot, and you know that surprised us versus what we thought even a week ago," said Foran.
The airline has already cut 10 percent of all its flights due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Foran said opting to reduce his $1.65 million salary shows he's committed to doing what needs to be fone for Air NZ.
"We're all in this together. You know, I've started in this role, I want to demonstrate right up front that I'm prepared to do what's necessary in order for us to ensure that this business is going to be a wonderful business in the years ahead."
Air NZ has reduced its capacity on flights to Asia by 26 percent until the end of June, including an extension of Shanghai route suspension through until April.
