Jobs fly at 1time

Pretoria - The CEO of 1time Holdings [JSE:1TM], Glenn Orsmond, said on Thursday the recent merger between their maintenance unit Aeronexus Technical, and Safair Technical, was badly handled.

The merger had lead to an 18% cut in its labour force. The airline had more than 700 workers in January, but at the end of July there will be only 582 left.

On April 1 last year the two companies merged when 1time acquired a 72% stake in Safair Technical for R20m.

Orsmond says 1time handled the merger very poorly, and that his company would be the first to admit that. If a book were to be written about how not to do a merger, 1time would find it easy to write.

With the merger, said Orsmond, there was large-scale duplication of senior positions. The company simply had too many people doing jobs that did not generate income, and too few people doing work that did generate income.

Orsmond said most of the posts that have been done away with since January have included people who have retired, as well as contract workers.

In the final analysis there were only 42 direct retrenchments. There were also management changes. Orsmond himself is now head of the maintenance division, but a permanent head will be appointed later.

Orsmond says 1time firmly believes in its aircraft-maintenance subsidiary, which is one of the company's three target areas for growth. This year 35 large-scale aircraft inspections will take place, and the company hopes to increase this number to 50 in 2011.

Not only have people been retrenched, but 40 new people have been appointed in positions where they will generate revenue.

In the financial year to the end of December 2009 1time increased its turnover from the combined division from R191m in 2008 to R334m.

Orsmond said that the division was not profitable during the first six months of 2010. Costs were simply too high. Following the personnel reduction the company expects to be profitable in the second half of the year.

 Sake24.com