Rolls-Royce is considering temporarily shutting its jet engine plants because of the drop in work.
The turbine maker is thinking about a two week closure in the summer after the pandemic grounded thousands of jets, leading to fewer servicing demands.
The company is in talks with unions about the plans, which it said will not affect its defence or energy divisions.
Rolls Royce said: “As part of the agreement reached with the union last summer we agreed in principle to enter into negotiations about delivering a 10 per cent productivity and efficiency improvement across our Civil Aerospace operations in the UK.
“We have now begun complex and constructive discussions with the union on how this can be achieved.”
The company aims to spread the wage hit through the year, as it avoids over-exploiting the furlough scheme.
It said: “We are continuing to use the UK Government Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme - and similar schemes elsewhere in the world - across areas of Civil Aerospace where workload has significantly reduced as a result of Covid.
“However, unilaterally claiming furlough for all employees across the UK Civil Aerospace business in a pre-planned way is not consistent with the intent - nor is it, we believe, within the spirit - of the scheme, as workload is not impacted across all areas.”
The company is in the midst of a multi-billion pound cost-cutting.
