AER Lingus has already cut 500 jobs and is currently finalising an additional 84 redundancies as it grapples with the impact of the Covid pandemic.
The losses represent more than a tenth of the 5,000 people the airline employed at the end of June last year.
Its interim CEO, Donal Moriarty, confirmed the extent of the job losses this morning as Aer Lingus owner IAG revealed the scale of losses inflicted on the Irish carrier during 2020.
Aer Lingus plunged to a €563m loss last year, which included €202m of exceptional items. It had made a €276m pre-exceptional operating profit in 2019. Its passenger revenue slumped 81.4pc to €382 last year, while cargo revenue jumped to €88m in 2020 from €34m.
Aviation executive Ian Woodley is understood to be engaged in talks to buy Aer Lingus Regional operator Stobart Air.
Mr Woodley was previously involved in regional carrier BMI. He was an investor in the consortium that acquired the operator from Aer Lingus owner IAG in 2012 and served as chairman until 2014.
The
Irish Independent understands that Andy Jolly, the managing director of Dublin-based Stobart Air, is also involved in the acquisition talks alongside Mr Woodley.
A UK-based boutique private equity house is thought to be lined up to provide financing for a deal.
Mr Jolly was chief operating officer at Loganair between 2007 and 2011. He served in the same role at Stobart Air from 2015 before being appointed its managing director in 2019.
Dublin-based carrier Stobart Air, which operates the Aer Lingus Regional service, will be sold by the end of the month, its UK parent has insisted.
Stobart Group, which yesterday formally passed a resolution to change the company’s name to Esken, committed last year to offloading Stobart Air by the end of this February.
“The strategy and guidance remain unchanged,” said a spokeswoman. “The strategy is to exit Stobart Air and the company said they would be disappointed if they hadn’t successfully exited the business by the end of this financial year.”
Stobart Group’s financial year ends on February 28.
Falko had previously been in talks with the UK’s Stobart Group to buy Stobart Air. That deal had been contingent on Stobart Air securing a new contract to operate Aer Lingus Regional beyond the end of 2022, however.
Stobart Group chief executive Warwick Brady has committed to shareholders to selling Stobart Air by the end of the group’s current financial year, which is the end of this month.
Mr Byrne said in a recent interview with aviation research group CAPA that Mr McCarthy, who also founded and owns aircraft maintenance firm Dublin Aerospace, secured a period of exclusivity as preferred bidder for the Aer Lingus Regional contract for “four to six weeks”, a period which he said had been extended.
The nightmare year of 2020 brought the airline industry s first decade of sustained profitability to a shuddering halt. The coronavirus pandemic tore through in a tumultuous, unprecedented way leaving carriers in a deep hole, along with a constellation of aerospace manufacturers, airports and leasing firms. 2021 is shaping up to be a transition year for an enterprise that takes passengers on the equivalent of 208 million annual trips around the globe. At best, the path ahead will be bumpy, with progress toward a return to travel dependent on the pace of vaccine roll-outs, access to capital, government policies and the unpredictability of a virus that s not yet fully understood. Still, there will be leaps, including the first commercial flights to near-space.