Airport to cut hours and staff after massive passenger fall
14.01.10
Durham Tees Valley Airport is cutting staff and operating hours after its passengers collapsed by 53% last year. Peel Group Holdings, which owns the airport, said the moves were needed to ‘create financial stability’ in the current tough economic environment for the aviation industry.
Over the past 3 years a number of airlines have axed or reduced flights from of the airport. Passenger numbers fell by 53% to 306,323 in 2009 compared with 670,000 in 2008. The changes will see the airport close overnight and its terminal building segregated into a premium area targeted at scheduled services and business travellers, and another area that will handle holiday charter and low-cost services.
Up to 32 posts will go with the remaining 143 staff trained to do additional jobs after the review of airport operations. Airport director Kerry Quinn said the airport continued to have a viable future, but had to become ‘better and smarter.’ She said: ‘Every aspect of air travel has been hit by the economic downturn and we have to look at how best we can respond to the changed world in which we are now operating.'
‘Regrettably, this does mean reducing our staff numbers, together with the introduction of greater flexibility through multi-skilling. We appreciate this is a difficult period for our staff and we are committed to full consultation with them and their representative trade unions in order to ensure that the measures we feel we have to take are dealt with as fairly and sensitively as possible.’
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