Airbus has reportedly warned its staff about compulsory layoffs in fears that passenger traffic could be recovering from COVID-19 crisis slower than expected.

Guillame Faury, the Chief Executive of Airbus, in a general business update letter has allegedly warned his 130,000 employees that pursuing the voluntary redundancies could not be enough if the COVID-19 crisis continues to deepen, reported by Reuters in a statement.

According to the source, the CEO revealed that pursuing the voluntary redundancies could not be enough to cut the company’s costs down. “We must now prepare for a crisis that will probably be even deeper and longer than the previous scenarios suggested”, in the warning letter doubted Faury.

Earlier in July 2020, Airbus revealed plans to reduce the number of employees by 15,000 people no later than until summer 2021. However, the company was then citing voluntary leave, early retirement and long-term partial unemployment schemes as the main measures to achieve the goal. 

At that time, union leaders stated that they would refuse involuntary layoff proposals. The French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire reiterated his plea for Airbus to avoid “forced departures as much as possible”. He qualified the numbers presented by the manufacturer as “excessive”.