Air Jamaica on Thursday said it has cut its work force by 136 and will lay off another 300 employees, together representing 15 percent of its work force, as part of a plan to restructure the debt-ridden national carrier.

Back in public hands after a decade of private control, Air Jamaica cut 100 flight attendants on Wednesday and 36 mechanics on Thursday. The 20 percent cut in flight attendants leaves just over 400 attendants to serve the airline's 15 aircraft.

The company, which has 3,000 employees, said 300 more workers would soon be cut, including some pilots, management personnel and customer service agents.

It was unclear how many of its 225 pilots the airline planned to ground. Pilot salaries account for 30 percent of the carrier's wage bill, earning an average USD$200,000 per year.

"The changes are necessary and had to be done in order to save the airline," Air Jamaica's new executive chairman, Vin Lawrence, said in a statement. "The adjustment in the number of flight attendants is in line with the reduction in the number of aircraft and routes."

The company -- which has been beset by rising wage bills, high fuel prices and the lingering impact on Caribbean tourism from the September 11, 2001, attacks -- cut some routes as part of its cost-reduction program, including Kingston to Antigua, and Kingston to Manchester, England, via Havana. Frequency of flights to other destinations was also reduced, the airline said.

The government, which ran the airline from its birth in 1969, sold majority shares to Air Jamaica Acquisition Group, led by business mogul Gordon "Butch" Stewart, in 1993.

The government reclaimed the airline on December 23 after the carrier had lost more than USD$600 million since 1993. Stewart's group owed the Jamaica government more than USD$20 million in fees alone.

Last year a report on the airline done by American firm Sabre suggested cutting 15 percent of the work force this year to save USD$30 million.