Travel companies that announced plans to create jobs in Glasgow when dnata Travel announced its proposal to merge Travel 2 with Gold Medal and close its Scottish office “didn’t really help in the early stages” of the restructure, according to the operators’ boss.
B2B tour operating managing director Lisa McAuley said it was “brilliant” that many of the staff made redundant had subsequently got other jobs, but described the offers of new positions as the consultation was starting, as “a lot of noise” which “didn’t make things easier”.
She told Travel Weekly on a webcast: “When we announced our plans, I think JTA made an announcement, Tailor Made Travel made an announcement – and look what’s happened to Tailor Made – and then John [Hays] made an announcement.
“It doesn’t necessarily make things easier because you’re trying to run your process, and the purpose of a consultation application process is to get counter proposals. So we put the proposal forward and then it genuinely is a case of ‘okay, if you guys can see an alternative or a counter proposal, then propose that and then we can consider it’.
“And you don’t just take those considerations lightly; they’re not flippant. You absolutely take them away and you dissect them and you see whether you can make it work.”
McAuley added: “There’s a time period for that so while there was a lot of noise going on around other people potentially stepping in, it didn’t necessarily help me really in the in the early part, and particularly because in hindsight, we probably went with our plans quite early on in all of this.
“Since we announced, we’ve seen company after company either go to the wall or announce similar programmes.”
McAuley said: “My objective really was that I just wanted to see as many people as possible in gainful employment.
“So when I took the call from John [Hays], we then said we think there’s an opportunity, but it has to be at that point where we, as the employer, believes it’s right.
“I genuinely don’t know where Hays have got to with it. It’s easier for me to remove myself from the process because I don’t want to compromise my position. Our HR teams have spoken and I do know that some people have got jobs, which is brilliant.”
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