By A Correspondent- The national airline Air Zimbabwe has told its workers that it has halted all the works due to the closure of airspace by the governments to avert the spread of the deadly Coronavirus.

In a Staff notice written on Thursday the company said majority of staffers will be placed on indefinite unpaid leave from the 23rd of April 2020.

The staff will be paid their full April salaries and thereafter wait for the situation to be fine.

Read the full statement below:

 On the 27″ of March 2020, the Head of State. His Excellency, President E.D. Mnangagwa announced a 21 day National Lockdown as a preventive measure against the spread of COVID- 19 pandemic. Details of the National Lockdown measures are articulated in Statutory Instrument 83 of 2020. Consequently, the Airline operations have ground to a halt as most of the passenger travel destinations are on lockdown with travel restrictions, implying NIL revenue inflows.

 While other revenue initiatives are being pursued. staff remuneration remains one of the largest cost drivers within the Airline and without revenue inflows and external interventions, it will be a challenge to continue funding the salaries.

Resultantly, our staff compliment shall be reduced and a skeletal team identified by the Heads  of departments will be in place to ensure adhoc operations, airworthiness compliance, safety, security of aircraft and associated equipment within the Airline. Therefore, some of us will be placed on indefinite unpaid leave effective 23 April 2020 until operations normalise. However, April 2020 salaries will be paid to all staff members in full.

This decision has been made after evaluating all the available and possible options. However, : the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly appears to have far reaching consequences on the overall economy and our way of living. Nonetheless, we look forward to resuming our normal operations with the deployment of our B737 and ERJ 145 once they are available and travel restrictions have been lifted.