More than 100 hundred jobs at risk at airport

At least 100 jobs could be axed at Leeds Bradford Airport as the pandemic continues to take its toll on the aviation sector.

The airport has confirmed it is “consulting with colleagues”. It is understood about 25% of the airport’s workforce is under threat, which mostly includes seasonal workers on temporary and zero-hour contracts for the summer period.

Commenting to the BBC today, a spokesman for Leeds Bradford Airport said: “We, like many other sectors, are operating in challenging circumstances and this has led to some difficult decisions.

“The long-term prognosis for aviation is very different to the short-term constraints our business faces.”

Airport bosses still anticipate that in the long-term, demand for flights will return to pre-pandemic levels.

And they intend to go ahead with plans to build a new, state-of-the-art replacement terminal.

The news follows the announcement by British Airways in May that it would be stopping flights between Leeds Bradford airport and London Heathrow – a route which had been running for seven years.

The impact of Covid-19 on the air industry has been severe, with Jet2 confirming 482 job cuts recently, as well as the crisis also proving the final nail in the coffin for the stricken carrier FlyBe which operated a large proportion of flights from Doncaster Sheffield and Humberside airports.