Denmark’s Copenhagen Airports (CPH) has planned to lay off 650 full-time employees due to the reduced passenger traffic amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
This measure is expected to help the airport secure its long-term competitive strength as the aviation industry experiences reduced passenger activity.
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Copenhagen Airports currently employs approximately 2,600 personnel.
The airport plans to hold discussions with its union representatives to ascertain the expected redundancies.
It is expected that this year will experience fewer passenger numbers even though many countries have restarted air travel.
The CPH management has said that the international passenger traffic will not return to pre-Covid-19 levels for some time.
CPH has adopted different operational and investment cost cuts in a bid to align costs to the current activity level.
Copenhagen Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye said: “It’s very sad that we’ll have fewer employees at CPH. Our goal during the crisis has been to maintain as much activity and retain as many jobs as possible at the airport. The coronavirus support packages passed by the Danish parliament have made a big difference to us.
“In particular, thanks to the most recent extension of the wage compensation scheme, we now have more information about the travel patterns of the future and with that, we may not have to lay off as many people as would otherwise have been necessary, had the scheme not been extended.
“However, given the current trends in air traffic flows, I’m afraid we have to accept that we’re not in a position to retain the number of employees we had in pre-corona times.”
Recently, Edinburgh Airport in Scotland, the UK, announced that it will cut around one third of its workforce.
