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Plane makers face coronavirus challenge

Plane making giants Boeing and Airbus are struggling to manage the effects of coronavirus.

Plane making giants Boeing and Airbus are struggling to manage the effects of coronavirus. Airbus's chief executive Guillaume Faury has warned staff that deep job cuts could be on the way. Meanwhile its American rival Boeing has cancelled a $4 billion deal to join forces with Embraer of Brazil, and has asked staff for voluntary redundancies. The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's Theo Leggett brings us the details, and we get wider context from Max Kingsley-Jones, an executive director at the news service Flight Global. Also in the programme, New Zealand has relaxed some of the very tight restrictions it introduced to try to beat the coronavirus, after prime minister Jacinda Ardern said Covid-19 has in effect been eliminated in the country. Colin Peacock is a presenter on Radio New Zealand and tells us how the country's citizens are responding to the news. Plus we look at the impact of coronavirus on the global horticulture sector. Ed Webb, chairman of Webbs Garden Centre in the middle of England says the company has been attracting four times the number of customers it would normally have at this time of year. But we hear that producers in Kenya's flower industry are being forced to destroy blooms for which there is no market. And Dutch Flower Group boss Marco van Zijverden tells us up to 80% of flower production in the Netherlands is also currently going to waste.

(Picture: A Boeing production line. Picture credit: Getty Images.)

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27 minutes

Last on

Mon 27 Apr 2020 21:32GMT

Broadcast

  • Mon 27 Apr 2020 21:32GMT