Hong Kong Airlines on Friday cut about 250 jobs in its second round of layoffs this year, making an abrupt announcement said to have followed multiple promises by management not to fire any more people.

Affected cabin crew members learned of their fate in the morning through a termination notice received on email from Viola Wong, head of human resources department, stating that their last day of work was on Friday. The company’s previous redundancy action was conducted in February, when it let go of 400 staffers and requested other employees to take unpaid leave.

In response to media enquiries, Hong Kong Airlines confirmed that because of the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the workings of the company, it was laying off about 250 cabin crew members on Friday.

It also said that the company had made great adjustments to the scale of its operations in light of travel restrictions applied in the last year due to Covid-19. The sustained adjustments had affected revenues, and the company expected to see a reduction in the demand for cabin crew in the foreseeable future.

Hong Kong Airlines pledged to compensate the sacked staffers according to their contracts and labor laws.

According to Wong’s email, each person would receive one month’s salary in lieu of notice, the salary for December and compensation for unused annual leave, to be paid out within seven days. In other words, the compensation would fulfil only minimum requirements set out in the Labour Ordinance.

A five-year cabin crew member surnamed Chow expressed shock at the sudden layoff notice, which she said she received at 8:53 a.m. There had been no signs of impending redundancy, she said, adding that in fact, senior management had claimed during an online staff meeting as recently as early December that no mass dismissal plans were in the pipeline.

Chow criticised the company for being heartless and targeting cabin crews even though they had been getting only the most basic salary, of HK$4,000 to HK$5,000 (US$518 to US$645), over the past year. She also said that some of her colleagues who had taken no-pay leave were also included in this round of layoffs.

From September to November, Hong Kong Airlines was one of the businesses that obtained financial support from the second tranche of the government’s Employment Support Scheme, under which the businesses had to commit themselves to not firing people.

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