Around 1,000 people are to lose their jobs at Wizz Air after the company announced a sweeping round of redundancies which will hit almost a fifth of its workforce.

The business said it had taken the decision as it is operating at 3% of pre-coronavirus capacity.

The salaries of pilots, cabin crew and office staff will be cut by 14% on average.

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The chief executive, the board and senior staff will all take a 22% cut.

The company has a Hungarian parent company with a base at Luton and operates flights out of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

National Express has said it will cancel its final dividend after the company revealed that revenues had taken a major hit from the coronavirus pandemic.

The business reported that revenue had grown by 9.4% in the three months to the end of March, although only because the first two months of the year had been strong.

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Revenue increased by 17% year-on-year in the January and February period, National Express reported.

The company said it has "acted swiftly and decisively" to protect its business, by liaising with governments and cutting costs.

Two members of staff have died after contracting coronavirus, National Express said alongside its trading update on Tuesday.

"I would like to pay tribute to our two colleagues who have tragically lost their lives to coronavirus. They were much respected colleagues and will be sorely missed," said chief executive Dean Finch.

The director general of the CBI, Carolyn Fairbairn, has said she has been told firms will be able to submit furlough claims from next Monday.

Discussing the scope of the Government's furlough scheme, Ms Fairbairn told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "I think one of the things that we recognise and that we've been going back to Government on is that there are instances where it is worth trying to redraw the rules.

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"All I would say is that we're in a race against time on this and the more complexity is introduced into the system, the more the risk is that it won't deliver on time.

"Now we've got firms, hundreds and thousands of them over the country at the moment waiting for the furlough scheme to pay out - that we hope will start next week, the first date should be next Monday when it begins to deliver.

"And so if we add complexity into this we run the risk of it not working and hundreds and thousands of firms are waiting for it to deliver."

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