The chief executive at the DAA, Dalton Philips has warned that Dublin Airport and Cork Airport are facing significant job losses. Due to measures that will have to be quickly implemented as the airports face a significant decrease in passenger traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of the epidemic more than a hundred employees could lose their jobs.
He further warned that it could take “several years” before passenger traffic returns to the levels seen in 2019, with a total of 35.5 million people passing through the airports, with 32.9 million at Dublin Airport alone.
In a letter to the DAA staff quoted by the Irish Independent, warns the traffic at both airports combined could be as low as 21 million in 2021.
He said: “Passenger numbers at our Irish airports business are currently down 99pc compared to the same time last year. The outlook for the rest of this year remains bleak.”
“We are looking at all options, but to give you a sense of the scale of the issue that we are facing, when Dublin and Cork airports last welcomed 21 million passengers per year, we had between 750 and 1,000 fewer employees in the business,” Phillips added.
“This economic crisis is serious, and we need to take action quickly, but we will work collaboratively with you and staff representatives to achieve the necessary cost savings. This inevitably will involve a substantial re-sizing of our business, new ways of working and significantly fewer employees. It is likely that reductions in staffing will have to apply throughout the business.”
Phillips added: “I am acutely aware that this is dreadful news and I wish that we didn’t find ourselves in this terrible position. This economic crisis is not of our making, or of your making; it is due to Covid-19 and the fallout from the global pandemic.”
“We will now work directly with you and with staff representatives over the coming weeks to safeguard as many jobs as possible and to protect our business for the future,” Philips concluded.
