Skyscanner to axe up to 84 Scottish jobs

TRAVEL company Skyscanner has announced plans to cut one fifth of its workers – including up to 84 jobs at its Scottish base.

The firm, known for finding bargain travel deals, was Scotland’s first privately held company to be worth more than £1billion. In 2016, it was sold to Chinese firm Ctrip – now Trip.com Group – in a deal which valued the company at £1.4billion, making it the largest tech travel deal in Europe.

Around 300 of its 1,500 workforce internationally are expected to lose their jobs due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the travel industry.

Skyscanner’s Edinburgh office is unlikely to close but others in Budapest, in Hungary, and Sofia, in Bulgaria, are expected to go.

The company had already frozen recruitment. Where new roles are created employees will be given priority, as an alternative to redundancy.

A spokesman for Skyscanner said: ‘While we are confident of Skyscanner’s recovery in the long-term, the impact of Covid-19 means that there is still uncertainty on how much time it will take for travel to recover and what this might look like.

‘This is a hard time for our people and teams, so throughout this process our priority – as it always is – will be to treat everyone with empathy, care and respect. We’ll be working to make sure we support them as much as we can.’

The company, which launched in 2003, plans to centralise its marketing teams and consolidate its offices.

It suspended its budgets and introduced a voluntary change in working patterns in March after the UK went into lockdown.