EasyJet maintenance company shuts down at Stansted losing 345 jobs
operations at Stansted airport, throwing 345 aviation engineers out of work.
of the Abu Dhabi Government, has told workers that it is selling the lease at
the airport and moving the operation to its Zurich headquarters.
which handles more than 20 million passengers a year.
over a cost-cutting scheme.
business by 2012, the budget airline, which last year reported a sharp drop in
profits, negotiated much tougher terms in an 11-year £1 billion agreement between
the two businesses. The carrier said that the new agreement will see easyJet cut
maintenance costs on the contract by £175 million over its life, or about £17
million a year.
will be carried out at a new operation in Malta.
statutory pre-flight checks on aircraft.
originally the engineering and maintenance arm of Swissair. After that airline
collapsed following the aviation industry slump caused by the September 11 attacks,
the SR Technics operation was rescued in a buyout led by 3i, the private equity
group.
operations of FLS Industries, which was sold to SR Technics in 2004.
Last year Mubadala bought out part of the Dubai-owned interests to take control
of the company.
shut its Dublin operations with the loss of 1,100 jobs. "It is not viable to have
two operations — Stansted and Zurich — just one and half hours’ flight time between
them," he said.
frustrated that their jobs are being exported abroad by an expanding company,
which refuses to even consider alternatives to job cuts."