Alaska Air Group is cutting about 200 jobs as CEO Ben Minicucci warns the company could lose as much as $700 million this year if current conditions persist. Higher fuel prices are the immediate problem, but Minicucci also acknowledged that overhead has grown too quickly. That is a sobering backdrop for an airline pursuing an ambitious international expansion.
The cuts represent less than 1% of the group’s roughly 32,500 employees. That makes them relatively small across the company, but certainly not small to the people losing their jobs…
In its October 20 earnings release, Alaska forecast a full-year adjusted loss of $5.00–$5.50 per share and said fuel would cost $1.8 billion more than its original annual plan. Its fourth-quarter forecast assumes fuel at $4.65–$4.85 per gallon. Third-quarter revenue rose 14% to $4.3 billion, but that commercial growth has not been enough to deliver the annual profit management expected.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Live and Let's Fly.
