By Karamjit Kaur

FACED with excess staff because of its plan to ground some of its planes and cut flights, Singapore Airlines has told its more than 14,000 employees that applications are open for no-pay leave.

Staff have till the end of the month to decide whether to take up the offer to go on unpaid leave - for anything from one week to two years.

The voluntary scheme, an SIA spokesman told The Straits Times, was to 'manage the surplus manpower arising from our planned capacity cuts'. He did not specify the extent of the 'surplus'.

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