AirBaltic plans to cut up to 700 jobs

Oct 5 (Reuters) - Latvian airline airBaltic said on Monday it is preparing to cut about 500 to 700 jobs across its bases in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn.    

• The carrier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York in September, aiming to complete a sweeping restructuring focused on cutting its mounting debt through capacity and fleet reductions.

• AirBaltic gained approval last month to access €140 million ($157 million) from a wider €350 million financing package.

• CEO Erno Hilden told Reuters in September that the airline was in talks with labour unions over "an adjustment" to the workforce.

• New organisational structures for the rest of the company are expected to be defined by mid-October, airBaltic said, with the final number of layoffs potentially changing within the course of the process.

• Dace Kavasa, chairperson of the Latvian aviation union, told Reuters there was "pure union busting" going on at the moment after management condemned a proposal for staff to take 85% part-time work.

• "We learned about 500 to 700 people, six minutes before they started an employee meeting where they presented this," Kavasa said, adding that any talks will only start on October 15.

($1 = 0.8922 euros)

(Reporting by Gianluca Lo NostroEditing by Stine Jacobsen, David Goodman and Devika Syamnath)