Job sharing initiative to save further redundancies at Copenhagen Airport

Copenhagen Airport’s operator today revealed that 380 staff are to begin sharing jobs in a bid to reduce further redundancies as a result of the downturn in traffic caused by COVID-19.

With traffic currently at less than 10% of normal levels, Copenhagen Airports has just completed negotiations for its second cost-cutting round in only three months, and as a result, nearly 380 employees will begin job sharing.

All involved will keep their jobs, but will be working on reduced hours and pay. At the same time, constructive talks between union representatives and CPH management produced, among other things, an increased focus on training initiatives which include reimbursement of pay.

The airport notes that “following constructive negotiations and a very strong commitment from union representatives and the staff to bringing own initiatives and mitigating measures into play”, the parties have managed to reduce the number of redundancies to a figure corresponding to 60 full-time positions.

Overall, the negotiations identified cost savings equivalent to about 325 full-time positions.

The persistent and quite significant lack of activity and of passengers in the terminals at Copenhagen Airport has made further cost savings necessary.

In its third-quarter interim report released earlier this month, the airport announced that due to the coronavirus crisis, it needed to identify annual cost savings corresponding to about 325 full-time positions.

Since then, union representatives and airport management have negotiated the practical implementation of the cost savings that were announced to the employees earlier today.

As a result of the cost savings, close to 380 employees will begin job sharing (equivalent to the effect of 147 full-time positions).

Copenhagen Airport’s human resources director, Kirstine Bergenholz, said: “I’d like to thank both the union representatives and the employees for showing such flexibility in what is a very difficult period for the airport.

“It’s not been long since we last had to reduce our costs and let go a large number of highly skilled staff, so I really appreciate that so many of our employees have shown great flexibility. It means that we’ll be able to reduce the number considerably although we can’t avoid redundancies altogether.”

She also emphasised that it is a sad day for everybody at CPH because employees have lost their jobs.

Passenger numbers at Copenhagen Airport have dropped sharply in recent months due to the amended travel guidelines, according to which the authorities advise against all unnecessary travel to most parts of the world.