Unite Scotland who represents Swissport workers, described the company’s decision to cut potentially more than 800 jobs in Scottish airports out of 4,556 jobs across the UK and Ireland as ‘absolutely devastating news’.
Swissport is the country’s largest ground handler; handling flights coming into nearly every regional airport across the UK.
It provides ground handling services to many major airlines, including ticketing and baggage handling.
Although the final details on the job losses effecting each airport have not been released, Unite Scotland fears that more than 800 jobs could be lost at Scottish regional airports with up to 70 at Aberdeen, up to 300 jobs at Edinburgh and up to 440 at Glasgow Airports, which would threaten the viability of each airport’s operations.
Unite is demanding that the UK Government urgently intervene with a bespoke financial package and an extension of the 80 per cent furlough scheme for the aviation industry.
The country’s leading aviation trade union has also called for the newly established Aerospace Response Group by the Scottish Government to include the civil aviation industry, and, repeated its call that unless both the Scottish and UK Governments bring forward supportive sectoral measures then Scottish airports could be on the brink of collapse.
Pat McIlvogue, Unite regional industrial officer, said:
“The announcement by Swissport is absolutely devastating news with more than 800 jobs being potentially lost at all three major Scottish airports.
“We are now witnessing the domino effect cascading throughout the civil aviation industry from cabin crew to airport workers through to baggage handlers and security staff.
“The industry is so integrated that if one domino falls – they all do.
“It’s an imperative that the Scottish and UK Governments bring forward a tailored supportive package for the industry because if we don’t then thousands of jobs will be lost and when we come out of lockdown there will be no workers in any major Scottish airports left to support the industry getting back off the ground.”
