Airport bosses struggling with Omicron news

AIRPORT bosses said they are “hugely concerned” amid reports of passengers cancelling flights or not showing up because of the Omicron Covid variant.

AGS Airports, owners of Aberdeen and Glasgow airports, said it remained at a “standstill”, with Glasgow Airport’s traffic falling to its lowest for nearly 50 years.

Brian McClean, AGS Airports’ communications and sustainability director, told the House of Commons transport committee on Tuesday the new travel restrictions introduced because of Omicron were a “hammer blow” to the industry.

He told MPs the company had taken on a “huge amount of debt” and sacked hundreds of workers as a result of its financial woes.

McClean said a huge redundancy programme last year was linked to the loss of around 3000 jobs – both directly and indirectly.

AGS said later these included 200 direct job losses at the airports.

McClean said Glasgow Airport expected to handle only 1.9 million passengers this year – the lowest since 1973.

McClean said: “We have been at a standstill for 20 months – it’s hugely concerning.

“It’s another hammer blow to our recovery, to the passenger confidence that had slowly been returning.

“We are now hearing anecdotal evidence of passengers cancelling flights and passengers not turning up for flights.

“We were at a point where we believed we were starting to regrow and rebuild, but this is a real worry for everyone. “This has set us back decades. “We have not had any period of stability over the last 20 months.

“We haven’t been able to get going – it’s been stop-start.

“It is quite difficult to tell how it is going to pan out.

“As we come out of this, we are going to see fewer airlines with fewer aircraft, we are going to see greater consolidation.

“We are extremely worried about developments at the moment.”

Loganair chief commercial officer Kay Ryan told the committee the Glasgow-based airline’s corporate travel market had been “massively impacted” by the pandemic, because of the work from home policy adopted by many organisations.

Ryan said: “We are at 75-80% of 2019 levels.

“I can’t see that 20% coming back any time soon, and that’s the concern.”