Virgin Atlantic is to cut 1,200 jobs and reduce flights to America in response to the "exceptional circumstances" following the attacks in the US, the airline said today.
Volunteers will be sought for redundancy, but jobs will be cut across the board, including pilots, cabin crew and office staff.
Flights will operate normally in the coming weeks to help clear the backlog caused by the massive delays in air travel since the outrage.
But Virgin plans to ground five aircraft and reduce its activity by 20 per cent, including cutting three daily flights to the US and Canada.
Virgin will also use smaller planes on some routes as a result of the "long-term effect" of the outrage.
Although capacity will be reduced to North America, Virgin said it will increase capacity to the Far East and to South Africa.
"We will take all possible measures to avoid compulsory redundancies," said a spokesman. We are looking to offer job opportunities to staff in the rest of the Virgin group".
The reduction in services will start in October.
Virgin Action, the group's leisure and health club business, is creating 700 new jobs and will give priority to Virgin Atlantic staff.
Virgin Atlantic chairman Sir Richard Branson said the decision had been forced on the company by the consequences of last week's "tragic" events.
"Virgin Atlantic needs to respond quickly and responsibly to match these exceptional circumstances and the consequential reduction of future customer demand," he said.