500 jobs to go at Rīga International Airport

Take note – story published 3 years ago

Due to the emergency situation in Latvia, which has brought a drastic decline in travel and economic activity, Rīga Airport has started consultations with trade unions representing airport employees on the implementation of the collective redundancy process, airport management announced April 7. The redundancies could affect around 500 workers.

The announcement said that all employees would be retained until the end of the first state of emergency on 14 April. The company's management, in cooperation with the Ministry of Transport, has developed and submitted to the government detailed proposals for state support measures to maintain the company's long-term existence and viability.

"Forecasts show that the impact of the virus crisis will last not days or weeks, but months and years. A month ago, Riga Airport was the leading Baltic aviation company with ambitious development plans, but today we are no longer fighting for leadership and the best performance - we are fighting for our existence," said the airport's board.

Even with the most optimistic forecasts, only by the end of 2021, will the volume of the airport's operations reach 80% of last year's figures," it said.

The reduction will affect all airport departments and board states that its aim is to "winter" the company in such a way that the airport can resume operations as efficiently as possible after the crisis. In solidarity with colleagues, the company's board also said it would reduce its own pay, though did not specify by how much.

It is planned that the collective redundancy process will end on June 1. Until then, all airport employees will continue to be paid and the airport board emphasized that any airport employee affected by the redundancies can expect to return to work "as soon as the economy, the aviation industry and the company recover."

Seen a mistake?

Select text and press Ctrl+Enter to send a suggested correction to the editor

Select text and press Report a mistake to send a suggested correction to the editor

Related articles

More

Most important