1,000 staff at Irish airports get redundancy warning letters from Swissport
ALMOST 1,000 Swissport staff at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports have been warned of the threat of compulsory redundancy due to the uncertainty and impact of the Covid-19 virus.
The aviation company, which carries out check-in and loading operations for more than 40 airlines at Dublin Airport, including long-haul carriers such as Emirates, Etihad and Delta, described its cost-cutting plan as “serious, unprecedented measures for very hard times”.
In one of two letters sent to its Irish staff in recent days the head of Swissport’s Irish operation warned that, following the collapse of Flybe and the onset of the coronavirus crisis, the company had engaged with trade union officials to discuss a restructuring of Swissport operations across all UK and Irish airports.
Swissport’s general manager in Dublin, Kevin Murray, warned: “We need to make some immediate steps to protect our business.”
In the letter he outlined a series of cost-saving measures that the company needs to make immediately, including a transfer of employees to other locations, a reduction in hours, unpaid leave, lay-offs and shorttime working, redeployment and voluntary redundancy at statutory rates.
“Whilst we continue to look at ways to achieve the required cost reductions and reduce the need for redundancies we must utilise any down-time caused by this loss of business in the most cost-effective manner, therefore over the coming weeks employees with outstanding annual leave balances will start to see days or weeks allocated to them,” said Murray.
“Should compulsory redundancies be necessary the company propose selection criteria to include attendance, disciplinary records, skills and length of service,” he wrote.
The global passenger-handling firm had moved to close its Dublin finance division as part of a major restructuring of its European business that began ahead of the current crisis.
But staff across its European operations, including at Irish airports, had earlier in the week received a letter from its chief executive for western Europe, Jason Holt.
“The uncertainty and a lack of consumer confidence is forcing our customer airlines to cancel their flights and manage down their flying programmes as they do all they can to weather the severe economic downturn that is happening across the world,” he wrote.
Holt wrote in his letter that “the seriousness of this cannot be underplayed when we consider the loss of our long-standing customer Flybe last week, the first notable casualty in the airline business being attributed to Covid-19.
“Hence, we stand looking at possibly the most overwhelming downturn in our business sector that many of us can remember. Whilst 9/11, Sars, foot and mouth and the economic meltdown of 2008 were challenging, we bounced back.”
But Holt, who said he had taken a 15pc pay cut himself, added that the company currently had “no visibility just how long Covid-19 will impact us for and when we will see a recovery”.
“Therefore, we now must rapidly adapt, ensuring that we take all available measures to protect our business, colleagues and friends so that when the recovery comes we can rebound,” he wrote.
He outlined the company’s initial cost-saving plan, but said if the required reductions were not achieved it was “considering all options including compulsory redundancy”.
“Our customers are indicating daily significant reductions in their businesses as they too adapt to this challenge,” wrote Holt. “We are the same — we must remain strong but to do so there will be difficult choices ahead. By adopting such choices we have the best chance of sustaining our business and retaining as many jobs and livelihoods as possible.”
He said the company would do all it could to limit the cuts, “but I cannot say this will be all that we have to do”.
“If we must dig deeper to ride this out then we will,” he wrote. “We have a great business and it is going to take much more than a virus to stop us.”
The company did not respond to a query from the Sunday Independent.