Christmas chaos coming to airports?

Christmas travel disruption could be on the cards at four UK airports, unless baggage carrier Aviator manages to transfer about 1,700 staff to other handlers.

 

Unite understands that Scandinavian company Aviator is closing down its UK operations at Birmingham, Gatwick, Manchester and Newcastle airports on November 30 because it is not making money.

 

The union has called for clarity about what Aviator is planning to do to ensure smooth continuity of check-in, refuelling, and baggage handling services, otherwise, the union warned, Christmas travel disruption was possible.

 

“Unite will be seeking assurances from the company, airlines, other handlers and ultimately, the airports that there will be no compulsory redundancies,” said Oliver Richardson, Unite national officer.

 

The union called on the airlines and airport owners to take on the Aviator workforce as a matter of urgency and to end the current state of limbo.

 

“Unite will be seeking assurances from the company, airlines, other handlers and ultimately, the airports that there will be no compulsory redundancies,” added Richardson.

 

There were about 1,200 Aviator staff at Gatwick servicing BA, Norwegian, Thomas Cook, Thomson and Virgin and 196 staff at Birmingham looking after 14 airlines, including Air India, American Airlines, Monarch, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines.

 

At Manchester, there was a 192-strong workforce servicing Norwegian, Thomas Cook and SAS and at Newcastle, there were 145 employees and the airlines included BMI and easyJet.

 

“The airport owners and the airlines, which require these services for their planes to land and take-off efficiently, need to get their skates on to sort this out, without any detriment to the staff jobs, pay and conditions, otherwise Christmas travel chaos is on the cards,” said Richardson.

 

According to its website, Aviator had a turnover of approximately €212m in 2015 and actively employs more than 4,200 personnel. It is a full-range provider of aviation services, taking care of passengers and equipment at 22 airports from Helsinki to London-Gatwick.