Upper Crust’s owner is axing thousands of UK jobs as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the economy, it has been reported.
SSP Group, the company behind railway station and airport chain, could make more than half of its UK workforce redundant as part of the move.
Sky News reported that will outline plans to cut up to 5,000 jobs in a statement to the London Stock Exchange after suffering heavy losses due to fallout from Covid-19.
The broadcaster said it had seen parts of a message sent to staff on Tuesday which reportedly said the company had decided to move to “reshape our business.”
“From tomorrow, we will be starting a collective consultation on a number of proposed changes to the business,” it added.
The cuts are expected to affect employees in the firm’s head office and those in both salaried and hourly-paid operations.
It comes as Aerospace giant Airbus announced plans to cut 1,700 jobs in the UK as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
Easyjet is also considering cutting more than 700 pilot jobs and closing its bases at Stansted, Southend and Newcastle airports, according to union Balpa.
Earlier this month, SSP, which employs around 30,000 staff worldwide and has 2,500 outlets, said it has suffered "extremely low sales" after the coronavirus pandemic forced it to shut sites.
The travel food specialist reported that like-for-like sales tumbled 8.4 per cent in the half year to March 31 after most global markets were hammered by the virus and subsequent travel restrictions.
Only 10 per cent of its units continued to trade throughout April, as the company "effectively hibernated", it said.
