HELSINKI (BLOOMBERG) - Finland's national carrier Finnair plans to eliminate as much as 15 per cent of its workforce and push through deeper cost cuts in an effort to survive one of the worst crises in aviation history.

The airline will slash a maximum of 1,000 jobs and lay off "practically all of its personnel in Finland," it said on Tuesday. Finnair also raised its 2022 cost-savings target to 100 million euros (S$161.6 million) from 80 million euros.

"A rapid turn for the better in the pandemic situation is unfortunately not in sight," chief executive officer Topi Manner said. "Our revenue has decreased considerably, and that is why we simply must adjust our costs to our new size." Some impacts from the pandemic are likely to be longer-term in nature, including remote working and its effect on business travel, Finnair said. It's trying to find savings in areas like real estate and aircraft leasing. It also plans to continue streamlining its operations and the digitalisation and automation of its customer processes.

Finnair reiterated an assumption that it will take another two to three years before traffic recovers to levels seen in 2019.