With the annoiuncement yesterday, 27th February, from BAE Systems of 75 potential job losses at its Regional Aircraft site at Prestwick Airport, now owned b the Scottish Government, there has been as yet no reaction to the situation from Cabinet Secretary for Investment and Infrastructure and Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
BAE said that it first did all it could to find new contracts to secure the future of its workers at the plant but that this has not proved possible.
It hopes to avoid compulsory redundancies as far as possible, looking first for early retirements, voluntary redundancies and early retirement, offering also re-training opportunities and some staff transfers to another department, before exploring the strategic use of sub-contractors.
The plant used to make the following types of ‘regional’ or short haul, aircraft types:
- Avro RJ/BAE 146 family
- BAe ATP
- Jetstream
- BAe 748
It then fell foul of the repercussion of the devastating ’9/11′ [September 2011] attacks on the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington, after which there was a slump in aircraft sales.
This led to a commercial decision to cease production at the plant and instead to lease existing aircraft and to offer support services in spares and maintenance training for its existing aircraft.
The last aircraft fully produced at Prestwick was an Avro RJX – formerly known as a BAE 146 – in November 2001.
The discouraging conclusions of a recent review of the plant’s commercial outlook for the year ahead has led to the decision to cut jobs. MD, Alan Fraser, has said that he knows the announcement is bad news for staff but underlined the reality that the current situation is not sustainable.
Mr Fraser said: ‘We have similarly reviewed staffing levels within our customer support organisation where there is a smaller reduction required to achieve an economically viable business’, stressing that BAE Systems is ‘absolutely committed’ to working with employees and their union representatives to find ways of impacting on potential job losses.
It is unusual for no comment on this situation to have come yet from Prestwick Airport’s new owners.