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Covid-19: Impact of pandemic leads to loss of jobs at London Southend Airport

BBC London Southend Airport terminal buildingBBC
Passenger numbers at the south Essex airport dropped by 93% between 2019-20 and 2020-21

The impact of Covid-19 has led to the loss of 21% of jobs at Southend Airport, its annual report revealed.

Dwindling passenger bookings have seen the number of full time posts at the airport drop from 274 to 217.

The airport said a "small proportion" was due to redundancy, with others choosing to leave over "ongoing uncertainty" in the industry, but it added it had been recruiting again.

Southend Council welcomed the airport's optimism about the future.

Passenger numbers at the airport fell from 2.15 million in 2019-20 to 147,000 in 2020-21, a reduction of 93%, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The decline led to the loss of retail outlets at the airport, including TRG, Dixons and WH Smith and airlines including EasyJet and Ryanair stopped using the airport.

It has been confirmed passenger flights will not resume until the summer, but the airport has said it would be ready when things return to normal.

Geograph/William London Southend AirportGeograph/William
Ryanair's base at London Southend Airport operated more than 50 flights a week on 13 routes to eight countries

Addressing job losses in its annual report, it said: "A relatively small proportion of this was due to redundancy, to which 19 roles were lost.

"The majority of the change was due to natural wastage, with some people choosing to exit the aviation industry in light of ongoing uncertainty.

"Nevertheless, in the early part of calendar 2021, the airport began recruiting - including security, air traffic control and functional management roles, with an additional focus on apprenticeships - albeit against as yet undefined start dates.

"The airport anticipates a return to growth in the not-too-distant future as short haul and leisure traffic will return more quickly than long haul and business travel."

Ron Woodley, the independent deputy leader of the council, said: "It's encouraging airlines are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

"We will have to wait and see, but if Southend themselves are being optimistic maybe the airlines are also optimistic.

"Continuing to recruit and train is absolutely the right thing because they don't want to end up with a skeleton staff and not be able to keep up with things if they happen quickly in terms of growth of the industry."

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