Aviation ground services specialist Swissport is to cut its UK workforce by 4,500 as it deals with lower demand for aircraft handling.
Swissport handles ground operations such as baggage handling and passenger services on behalf of airlines and has a presence at most UK airports.
The fall-off in demand for air travel and slow recovery expected from the coronavirus pandemic has put pressure on the company which now needs to cut over half of its UK workforce.
Swissport, which employs 8,500 people in the UK and 64,000 globally, hasn’t said where the redundancies will happen of which part of the business will be affected but is likely to have a bigger effect where swissport operates at regional airports like Cardiff (CWL/EGFF) and Newcastle (NCL/EGNT).
The cuts are likely to increase pressure on the government to act on the Aviation industry in the UK which is reeling from thousands of job losses in almost every sector of it from flight crew right through to admin staff.
It also calls into question the long-term viability of regional airports, something which a spokesperson for the GMB Union raised saying “With Swissport now considering job cuts on this scale, we have deep concerns about the viability of many of our regional airports and the benefits for regional connectivity that they bring,”