120 more jobs to go at airport

The airport has already made 250 redundancies and yesterday announced a fresh consultation on another wave.

From January to the end of September the airport has had 2.6 million passengers which is 74 per cent less than the same period in 2019.

The airport has issued a statement which says: “Despite coming out of a national lockdown in the summer, the continued quarantine measures, lack of testing policy and other restrictions here and abroad, means that we continue to operate at just 20 per cent of pre Covid-19 passenger traffic.

“We have tried to secure as many jobs as we can but the sustained decline in passengers means that we now, with regret, have to consider resizing the business further. This could lead up to a further 120 redundancies, and we have today entered into a 45-day collective consultation period.

“We understand that this news will be incredibly disappointing for those involved but we are experiencing the worst decline in our history and have had to make this difficult decision in the best interest of the business.”

Birmingham Airport normally generates £1.1 billion a year for the region’s economy and helps support more than 25,000 jobs, with about 8,000 people either employed at the airport or nearby in airport-related activities.

Passenger numbers are still recovering following a huge suspension in the number of flights due to the coronavirus pandemic which resulted in a 98 per cent fall in flights at the height of the lockdown.

Birmingham handled 12.1 million passengers in its 2019-2020 financial with growth seen in the 11 months up to March, at which point Flybe went into administration and the impact of Covid-19 on traffic started to be felt.

The airport’s £500m master plan to invest over the next 15 years to modernise and extend facilities is to be re-assessed once the timing and rate of recovery of passenger numbers due to the coronavirus crisis becomes clear.