Virgin Atlantic sacks more Hong Kong staff amid questions about its future in the city
British airline shuts its ticketing and reservation department with the loss of 16 jobs but insists it will continue serving Hong Kong
Virgin Atlantic Airways is axing more staff in Hong Kong, throwing up question marks about its future in the city.
The airline confirmed it would shut its ticketing and reservation department entirely, with 16 jobs to go by May 31. The move will affect 60 per cent of its local back office staff. Responsibilities will be passed to Singapore and its US shareholder, Delta Air Lines, which has a 49 per cent stake in the carrier.
The British airline confirmed the “difficult decision” but said it was not a reflection on “the great work” done by its Hong Kong staff.
On Thursday, union and staff sources said Virgin had handed redundancy notices to two more staff members in the cargo department, leaving only the airline’s cargo manager in Hong Kong.
In November last year, the airline sacked 50 experienced Hong Kong cabin crew in a major cost-cutting drive, and in 2014 sacked almost 80 flight attendants.
Commenting on the restructuring, Virgin Atlantic Hong Kong Cabin Crew Union chairman Bobby Yeung Sheung-hang said: “I’m not sure why they decided to go ahead with this redundancy this time. I know late last year they made a decision to keep the service in Hong Kong. However now in April they make the decision to cut ticketing, reservations and the call centre.”
The union boss said the redundancy was “really unacceptable” and “ridiculous”.
The airline will use Mandatory Provident Fund contributions to offset staff redundancy pay.
Speculating on the company’s future and its presence in Hong Kong, Yeung said: “They still have business in Hong Kong. You can see the trend is to cut. But I still think they will have a business but will minimise manpower for the Asian market.”
A Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman said: “We need to ensure that we can be a financially resilient company that consistently delivers, no matter what the external environment looks like. This has included looking at what the overall cost base and size of the airline should be, so that we can serve our customers even better. This will have absolutely no impact on our flying programme and we remain fully committed to serving Hong Kong.”
The airline has scaled back flights, axing Cape Town, Tokyo, Mumbai, Vancouver and Sydney in recent years in favour of more US flights thanks to the input of its influential American shareholder.
Following the cuts, 45 people are likely to be retained in Hong Kong, including the airline’s country manager, 33 cabin crew and back-office staff in marketing, sales, finance and human resources.
The union said the airline started flying between London and Hong Kong yesterday with 10 cabin crew instead of 12, as part of the airline’s service cutbacks.
Virgin recorded a small pre-tax profit of £22.5 million (HK$248 million) for last year, boosted by lower jet fuel prices and the Delta partnership. Its billionaire founder Richard Branson, who owns 51 per cent of the airline, will net HK$6 billion from the sale of US budget airline Virgin America, which he founded in 2007. His current net worth is estimated at HK$47 billion.
