400 jobs to go at Buzz - union
Up to 400 jobs are set to go at budget airline Buzz when the carrier’s new owner, Ryanair, takes over in April, the GMB union has warned.
About 100 redundancies were reported to have been agreed after the takeover deal went through last month, and Ryanair warned it could close down Buzz if staff did not agree to new working terms.
But the GMB said it had been told 400 Buzz jobs - out of a total of about 600 - would be axed when Ryanair takes over on April 1.
Among those set to lose their jobs were 25% of the Stansted-based carrier’s pilots, 80% of the cabin crews and half the ground services staff, the GMB said.
A Ryanair spokeswoman could not confirm the job losses, but added: “The integration process is ongoing and there’s scheduled to be an announcement at the end of the month.”
The GMB’s Paul Kenny warned that the remaining jobs at Buzz were not likely to survive for long.
“Ryanair’s predatory takeover is simply to remove the opposition from the low cost part of the industry.
“The flying public will lose out on choice and 400 Buzz employees will lose their livelihood immediately and I expect the rest will follow soon after.”
The GMB said the entire Buzz fleet would be grounded for at least four weeks - apparently for “re-branding” purposes – although the union said this normally took only 24 hours.
In January, Ryanair ordered 100 new planes as it struck the deal to buy Buzz for £15m (€22m).
But Ryanair said that as Buzz would have more than £11m (€16.2m) of cash on completion, the net cost of the deal would be only about £3m (€4.4m).
Buzz, which is owned by Dutch airline KLM, operated 21 routes from London Stansted – Ryanair’s main UK base – to points in Germany, Holland, France and Spain, as well as two French domestic routes.
Ryanair said the deal allowed it to expand further at Stansted, where it currently flies 49 routes.
