Hundreds of ground-handling jobs under threat
A GROUND-HANDLING firm has put 300 jobs at risk of redundancy at Manchester Airport.
Menzies Aviation said it was left with ‘no choice’ as the pandemic has been the ‘most challenging period the UK aviation sector has ever seen’.
The company said the collapse of airline Flybe earlier this year heavily impacted its operation at the airport.
The redundancy figure includes the Menzies teams who were servicing Flybe when it collapsed, a spokeswoman confirmed. She said consultation had already commenced with these teams by the time the job retention scheme was introduced.
Menzies halted the consultation at that point to allow them to apply for the scheme and to allow time to assess the impact of Flybe’s collapse and Covid-19 together, she added.
She also said the figure, 300 roles, is an ‘approximated maximum number’ of redundancies and they anticipate the actual number will be less. “We continue to explore all alternative options in our consultation with union representatives such as more part-time working in order to minimise the number of redundancies,” she added.
Another ground-handling firm, Swissport, previously confirmed that it was ‘taking steps to reduce the size of its workforce’.
A spokesman for the firm did not confirm how many jobs were at risk at Manchester Airport.
But they did anticipate that around half of the workforce in the UK, 4,000 roles, would go.
Jason Holt, CEO of Swissport UK and Ireland said: “At its core, our business relies on a high volume of flights taking place. When aircraft aren’t flying, our source of revenue disappears. As of May, revenue has dropped by around 75 per cent across our business.
“We are grateful for the help of government support schemes, which have allowed us to take the time to properly consider our position and do everything possible to work for solutions that will protect jobs. But we now must adapt to the unfortunate reality that there simply aren’t enough aircraft flying for our business to continue running as it did before Covid-19.”