National –
Wingspan Services Company Limited, an offshoot company of Thai Airways, had announced its objective yesterday, September 1, to lay off nearly 2,600 employees, effective immediately.
Om Phalanich, Acting Managing Director of Wingspan Services, had signed the agreement letter to officially terminate its workers due to the tremendous financial loss and the exceeding debt of its parent company during the Covid-19 outbreak.
According to the announcement, Wingspan, who particularly supplies its labor to Thai Airways, is hugely affected in financial performance despite its tireless effort to reduce all unnecessary expenses during the past five months.
The company income is insufficient to cover the salaries of temporary laid-off and furloughed employees, which resulted in severe financial problems. Therefore, the official decision to terminate a group of 2,598 employees is inevitable and crucial in order for the current employees to continue to perform their duties.
Wingspan Services is willing to pay compensation for termination and other payments required in the Thai labor law within 1 year from the effective termination date or when the company’s financial liquidity has gradually restored, according to the announcement.
Ampai Wiwatanasathapat, a labor representative, said this was the second group of Wingspan workers who lost their jobs after 896 workers were already laid off earlier in May with a remaining 4,400 workers were on its payroll.
She told reporters: “The labor union of Wingspan is waiting for an official termination of employment letter to be delivered to all workers within 7 to 14 days to see if they receive fair compensation.”
“Most of the employees have been put on temporary furlough during the travel restrictions and this batch is the largest number of layoffs. The layoff announcement will leave about 1,000 employees – 800 of them remain working in Thai Airways, and 200 in Thai Smile.”
“But, if the company still struggles in the current financial situation, we’re afraid that there would be incoming additional layoffs. Therefore, we seek help from the government and the Ministry of Labor to help those laid-off employees with financial assistance by law since the company requested to extend compensation payments within the next year.” Ampai stated.
