Spooner cuts 90 staff at Manchester

Spooner cuts 90 staff at Manchester

MANCHESTERAirport’s new managing director John Spooner is ditching nearly a fifth of his staff in a sweeping restructure to cut costs and boost efficiency.

Spooner insisted the changes had been planned before last month’s attacks in the US, but said the events of September 11 had made measures to raise efficiency more important than ever. Ninety jobs will go, out of a workforce of 500, across management, operational and administration divisions.

“The challenges of achieving growth were already significant and recent events in the US present the airport and our airline customers with even more challenges,” he said. “I regret the loss of jobs but I have no doubt they are necessary.”

Spooner hopes many of the redundancies will come through early retirement and voluntary redundancy.

A 30-day consultation with trade unions and employees about the job cuts will finish at the end of the month.