The airline is hoping to cut excess staff through voluntary redundancies but hasn't ruled out mandatory job cuts as a "last resort".
13:27, Fri, Mar 20, 2026 Updated: 13:28, Fri, Mar 20, 2026
The European airline is hoping to tackle excess staffing through voluntary redundancies (Image: Getty)
A major European airline is offering crew members over £14,000 to voluntarily hand in their notice, reports suggest. Swiss Airlines, a subsidiary of Austrian Airlines, launched the pay-out scheme in a bid to cut staff amid weakening operational capacity this month. Flight attendants who voluntarily resign or go on temporary leave by April 30 will receive a lump sum of 15,000 Swiss frans (£14,249), The Independent reports.
Around 4,000 crew members based at the airline's Zurich site have been offered the payment, with employees who have worked at the firm for over six years given a similar incentive to enter a "dormant employment relationship" of at least a year. A spokesperson for Swiss Airlines said the excess crew numbers was linked to engine problems and a shortage of cockpit staff, meaning less flights were being operated than initially planned.
Thousands of staff at the European airline have been offered the pay-out (Image: Getty)
They added: "Since last summer, we have already been offering our cabin crew voluntary options such as unpaid leave, individual time off, or short-notice reductions in working hours.
"These past months have shown that many colleagues make use of these options when they align well with their personal circumstances."
"The deployment requirements of our cabin crews are constantly changing - depending on the flight schedule, season and operational developments," Swiss Airlines told national news agency AFP.
"Currently, we assume that in some months we will have up to 300 more cabin crew members temporarily on the team than we can currently deploy in flight operations.
"We expect this situation to gradually normalise in the coming months and to balance out again by the beginning of 2027 at the latest."
The limited flight operations are linked to issues with Pratt & Whitney’s PW1000G geared turbofan engines, which power Swiss Airlines' Airbuss A220, A320neo and A321neo fleets.
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As well as a shortage of pilots, the carrier is reportedly feeling the repercussions of ongoing geopolitical instability in the Middle East, which has caused travel chaos in recent weeks.
While the airline has said it hopes to reduce staffing levels rapidly through the voluntary redundancy schemes, a spokesperson acknowledged that forced job cuts may also be required down the line as a "last resort".
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