Amsterdam airport to cut up to 25% workforce

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

BRUSSELS, Jan. 28 (Chinese media) -- Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of the top five airports in Europe, announced plans on Wednesday to slash its workforce by 10 to 25 percent by the end of 2010.

"A strong decline in traffic and increasing international competition have forced Schiphol Group to implement organizational adjustments," the airport operator said in a statement.

The staff reduction will be achieved through natural attrition, outsourcing and job cuts, the group said, adding that it will draw up a redundancy program with the trade unions in the short term.

Schiphol is the biggest airport operator in the Netherlands with 2,200 employees. It also operates airports in Rotterdam, Lelystad and Eindhoven.

Schiphol has already announced that it plans to delay some investments.

The group said earlier this month that it expects a sharp decline in passenger and cargo traffic this year as a result of the global financial crisis and the new air passenger tax introduced by the Dutch government last July.

Last year, the number of passengers traveling through the Amsterdam airport dropped 0.8 percent to 47.4 million and cargo traffic fell 1.4 percent to 1.59 million tonnes. It is Europe's fifth largest airport by passenger numbers and third largest by freight volume.