On Friday Sterling, Nordic low fares carrier, said that it would cut about twenty per cent of its 1,000 staff, both pilots and cabin crew, to combat the impact of a difficult aviation market.

The Icelandic-owned carrier said that it would no longer run its bases permanently at Malmo and Gothenburg in Sweden and Billund and Aalborg in Denmark from the first day of the coming year, strengthening its work force at its bases in Scandinavian capital cities of Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo.

Mr. Reza Taleghani, the chief executive of Sterling, said that he expected to reach the staff cuts mostly through voluntary retirements and would seek to keep some flexibility to spread out again in the coming year if the market allow.

He said, "The aviation industry is experiencing a difficult combination of extremely high fuel prices and a declining global economy. Sterling is no exception and these developments demand actions".

He also said that the planned cutback in the number of available seats was about fourteen per cent, adding that the carrier was already staffed for more flying machines than it flew.

Last year, the airline carried around 4.4 million travellers and reduced its operating loss to 4.5 million Danish kroner from 182.4 million in the year 2006. But it still remains to be seen how the result of this new development would come out and how the airlines would be able to make some more amends of the front of profits and loss.