Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 26 July 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Situation at Dublin Airport: Discussion

Mr. Darren Moloney:

Similar to Swissport, we lost 75% of our pre-pandemic activity. We also lost permanent business as well, such as the collapse of Flybe just the before the pandemic in February 2020. Some operation just pulled out of Dublin completely. There was obviously Stobart in 2021 as well. We lost permanent business that was not potentially coming back after the pandemic. Therefore, there as an element of downsizing with that. However, we retained a core group of staff. We retained them above-wing at 100% and below-wing we retained a core group with key skills for us. However, some individuals took the opportunity to look at the industry and move. Another reason for that is we were potentially opening, getting airline schedules coming in that looked quite strong and then we were getting cancellations because of restrictions in place in Ireland and in different jurisdictions around Europe as well. It was very hard for us to give any certainty to our staff and tell them in two or three months we will essentially be back to pre-pandemic times and, therefore, individuals made decisions and exited the business.

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