Sep. 10--BANGKOK -- Citing "the debilitating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic," Singapore Airlines announced on Thursday that it is laying off 4,300 workers. 

After being hit by "a catastrophic 99.5-per-cent decline in passenger carriage" due to lockdowns and travel restrictions, the airline group has been left operating at 8 per cent of its usual capacity, CEO Goh Choon Phong said in a Thursday statement.

The job cuts amount to just over 8 per cent of the airline's total headcount.

A wealthy city-state of almost 6 million people, Singapore is an investment and business travel hub in South-East Asia, with Changi, the country's airport, usually a busy transit point between the region and the rest of the world.

The pandemic has seen Singapore largely closed to visitors since March, though business and essential travel is resuming, with several neighbouring countries and tourists from Brunei and New Zealand able to enter.

Singapore's economy contracted a record 13.2 per cent in the second quarter, with retail sales dropping by half at the height of an April-June lockdown.

The government has pledged fiscal spending of around 20 per cent of gross domestic product to offset the pandemic's impact, including 13 billion dollars allocated to Singapore Airlines in March.

Though Singapore Airlines has the backing of its cash-rich government, it regards itself as "more vulnerable" than rivals in bigger neighbouring countries

"We don't have a domestic market," Goh said, warning that international travel may not hit pre-pandemic levels until 2024.

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