With airlines cancelling huge numbers of flights it’s easy to forget the effect this has for airports and their staff.
Last week we reported that London Heathrow was cutting jobs, and now comes news that Frankfurt, another major hub airport, will be reducing its employment by up to 4,000.
According to Bloomberg, Fraport (the airport’s operator) says that the job losses are a result of the travel downturn caused by Covid-19 which is expected to last for several years.
Frankfurt currently employs around 22,500 staff.
In an interview Fraport’s CEO Stefan Schulte said the airport would be downsizing in ground handling and administration.
He said, “We will be employing between 3,000 and 4,000 fewer people. This is our perspective into 2023 and 2024.”
At the other end of the scale we see tiny airports like Newquay cutting back.
Up to 36 staff could be made redundant. This week staff were told by owner Cornwall Council that it could years for passenger numbers to return to levels seen pre-Covid-19.
Meanwhile, Menzies, one of the ground handlers at Edinburgh and Glasgow airports has placed 300 staff on redundancy notice.
And the bankruptcy of Swissport (Belgium) at Brussels airport cost 1,500 staff their jobs.
Breaking news at the time of writing is that Brussels’ other ground handler Aviapartner has now had to be rescued by the Belgian government. The latter has approved a loan worth €25 million.
Had Aviapartner (Belgium) failed it would have left Brussels without any ground handling facilities. In my decades of aviation experience I have never known such a situation.