Airline creates 160 Gatwick jobs

Mar 14, 2009

More than 160 jobs are to be created at Gatwick Airport when an airline introduces eight new routes to the European mainland.

Aer Lingus plans to start its services to Faro, Malaga, Munich, Nice, Vienna, Dublin, Knock and Zurich in April.

A spokesperson for the company said the routes would be in direct competition with EasyJet, who recently announced new flights from the airport.

Aer Lingus has already sold 75,000 tickets for the routes, she added.

Corporate affairs director Enda Corneille said: "Aer Lingus is a profitable low cost carrier and although other carriers are either going out of business or pulling out of Gatwick we see Gatwick as a huge opportunity.

"We're investing four aircraft initially, going to eight within a year and we see this as a market that is underserved and we intend to serve it for the long haul."

He added: "We're creating 160 jobs initially, these will mainly be cabin crew and pilots.

"We've had over 3,000 applications for those jobs and we're actually interviewing cabin crew here at the airport today."

In November the Irish company said it would cut up to 1,500 jobs through redundancy and outsourcing as part of a 74 million euro cost-saving programme.

Source: BBC