It is not yet clear when the layoffs will take place and how many employees will be affected by the layoffs in the Czech Republic. The company has been in a loss for a long time and at the end of the year before last it had negative capital.
The company describes the layoffs as restructuring. According to the 2022 annual report, it expects to make a profit only in 2025. It was already in a loss before covid in 2019, the year before last the loss amounted to almost half a billion crowns, and for the years 2019 to 2022 the sum of the annual results reached a loss of almost two billion crowns.
The Covid-19 pandemic had a very negative impact on the company’s operations and management, and many customers described bad experiences with compensation for canceled flights.
“This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in my life. I am building a company with a certain vision, which also includes capable and talented people. Unfortunately, times are changing very dynamically, which is why we have to take long-term steps that will help us maintain a healthy and prosperous company,” said co-founder and CEO Oliver Dlouhý.
It should be easier for companies to fire people
In addition to severance pay, laid-off employees are to have access to an employee assistance program by the end of June, which operates a 24-hour phone line providing personal, legal and financial consultations with experts.
The company says its transformation is to invest in brand building and focus on customer experience. It also adjusted the strategy of partnership with airlines. In the future, he also wants to focus on cost management and finding new ways to increase income.
It has been on the market since 2012 and its business consists of reselling tickets from different companies and using an algorithm to offer a combination of flights from companies that do not cooperate with each other. For example, on Monday it announced that it had agreed on a partnership with the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, with which it had been fighting a number of lawsuits until then. Ryanair did not want anyone to sell its tickets. Since 2019, the majority owner of Kiwi.com shares is the American investment fund General Atlantic.
