LSG Sky Chefs downsizes facility in East Midlands
London -- LSG Sky Chefs has announced that it has entered a 30-day consultation period with staff at its East Midlands Customer Service Centre. All employees at the facility, based at the airport's Cargo Terminal 3 at Castle Donington, Derbyshire, were advised of the developments today.
Rising fuel and food costs and the merger of two of LSG Sky Chefs' main customers at East Midlands has led to a big reduction in the number of flights to be serviced. Unless significant new business can be found during the next four weeks, the company will be forced to close the facility in its current form with the majority of the workload transferred to customer service centres in Birmingham and Manchester.
A small satellite station, comparable to the company's operation in Doncaster, staffed by one manager and eight driver/loaders, would be set up at East Midlands airport to handle the remaining local business. But this would inevitably result in redundancies for some employ-ees. The situation affects about 60 people, including 42 full-time staff and around 20 agency personnel.
Dale Easdon, LSG Sky Chefs' Chief Operating Officer UK, said: "It is no secret that the air-line industry has been going through troubled times in recent months. Sadly when there are problems with the airlines, this inevitably has a knock-on effect on companies that service them. It is with great regret that we now have to look at tightening our belts and potentially reducing our operation at East Midlands. However, I want to reassure existing customers that this decision will not change our commitment to providing a top-quality service to airlines op-erating out of East Midlands Airport. Logistically this may mean services just being organised in a slightly different way."
In the United Kingdom LSG Sky Chefs provides an entire range of in-flight services including supplying more than 22.5 million meals each year to over 103,000 flights from locations that include London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick, London-Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, East Midlands and Doncaster.
LSG Sky Chefs is the world’s largest provider of in-flight services. These include catering, in-flight equipment and logistics, in-flight retail as well as the management of onboard and related airport services. LSG Sky Chefs partners with more than 300 airlines worldwide and operates some 200 customer service centers in 52 countries, producing around 490 million airline meals a year. In 2011, the companies belonging to LSG Sky Chefs Group achieved consolidated revenues of € 2.3 billion.