1,000 jobs to go at Cork and Dublin airports
UP TO 1,000 jobs will be lost at Dublin and Cork airports amid the fallout of Covid-19, the head of the company that operates them has warned.
DAA chief executive Dalton Philips said the firm had lost around €1million a day since St Patrick’s Day – an ‘enormous’ sum totalling almost €100million.
While he said staff had been ‘absolutely heroic’, he warned that wages will have to be cut and the organisation downsized.
All DAA staff have already taken a 20% pay cut. Some 3,600 staff work across the two airports, and between 750 and 1,000 people are expected to lose their jobs.
On Sunday, Dublin Airport, by far the country’s biggest, had its busiest day since the pandemic began, with 4,000 passengers passing through. However, that is just a fraction of the 115,000 the airport would normally service at this time of year.
Mr Philips told RTÉ Radio yesterday that he believes it will take up to three years for passenger numbers to recover to pre-Covid levels, and that he expects figures will be at least 40% lower than normal next year.
All staff have been sent a letter outlining three options: of redundancy, a career break or remaining in their role.
A DAA spokesman said there has been a ‘good’ response to the letter but would not reveal the numbers who had volunteered for redundancy or a career break. Work on the new runway in Dublin was continuing and it will be ‘more or less complete’ by the end of the year, Mr Philips added.
He said it has never been more important in linking the whole of Ireland with the rest of the world. He added that expects the experience of flying to be ‘stressful’ in the future with passengers experiencing a slower transition through security.
Mr Philips also said that anyone coming to the airport must wear a face mask.
‘No-one will be allowed in to greet someone from a flight, or to accompany someone into departures,’ he said.
Before the pandemic, 6,000 passengers an hour could be processed through security. That is now down to around 2,000.