German flagship airline Deutsche Lufthansa is looking at job cuts in Switzerland as part of group-wide cost-saving measures, its chief executive was quoted as saying in a Swiss newspaper on Sunday. "We are intensively looking into location-related costs," Christoph Franz told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper in an interview.
"(Switzerland) is a relatively expensive location. We will have to consider, to what extent and where we can still afford to carry out personnel-intensive services."
Airline Swiss belongs to parent company Lufthansa. Franz said there were as yet no numbers for potential job cuts, but the company was looking at administrative positions, such as sales and human resources roles.
Lufthansa plans to cut costs by 1.5 billion euros by the end of 2014. It has not said what specific measures it plans or how many jobs may be cut, but said it aims to pool purchasing volumes and slash administrative staff costs, among others.
In a separate interview with newspaper Der Sonntag, Franz said the strong Swiss franc had put costs under pressure. He said the group must consider whether to outsource certain service functions.