Gatwick airport risks becoming 'ghost town', union says

More than 6,000 jobs have been lost at Gatwick airport during the Covid-19 crisis leaving the airport and nearby communities in danger of becoming a ghost town, the UK's biggest aviation union said.

The Unite union said the job losses included people working at Gatwick for the airport or airlines and in the supply chain but did not include retail, hotel or hospitality workers. Airlines such as British Airways, ground handling firms and other companies that trade at airports have announced tens of thousands of job cuts because of the crisis.

Gatwick announced 600 job losses covering a quarter of its workforce in August, taking the total number of redundancies made directly by the airport during the crisis to more than 1,000. BA has cut its Gatwick operations and Virgin Atlantic has pulled out entirely.

The airport, the UK's second-busiest, plunged to a £344m first-half loss as passenger numbers were virtually wiped out during the pandemic. Experts do not expect UK passenger numbers to get back to pre-coronavirus levels for many years if at all.

As the biggest employer in the area Gatwick's woes have affected the nearby town of Crawley, Sussex, and other surrounding communities whose residents rely on it for work and business, Unite said. The union called on the government to take urgent action to protect jobs in the aviation industry.

Unite regional officer Jamie Major said: "Prior to the pandemic Gatwick was a thriving community but unless the government provides direct support the airport faces becoming a ghost town. The huge job losses are now causing a domino effect with non-aviation employers in Crawley and the surrounding area being affected, which is likely to lead to further job losses."

On the eve of a parliamentary debate on the plight of the aviation industry, Major said the government should extend and upgrade its covid-19 job retention scheme to protect aviation jobs. He said the government should also suspend air passenger duty, provide business rate support for airports in England and Wales, and extend loan repayment dates for aviation companies.

Unite said on top of job losses many workers in the aviation sector were being forced to accept worse terms and conditions and lower pay. A report in June warned at least 70,000 UK aviation jobs were at risk and said cuts on that scale would be on a par with reductions in the coal industry in the early 1980s.