Type
Business expansion
Country
United Kingdom
Region
Location of affected unit(s)
Sector
Transportation / Storage
Land, Water And Air Transportation
Air Transport
51 - Air transport

6,000 jobs
Number of planned job creations
Job creation
Announcement Date
5 August 2004
Employment effect (start)
Foreseen end date
31 August 2009

Description

In August 2004 Sir Richard Branson's airline ordered 13 new A340-600s Airbus planes in a £3 billion deal that will create 6,000 new jobs across the UK. Within that plan in June 2005 Virgin Atlantic airline announced plans to hire 1,500 staff to support its expansion over the next 18 months The airline expects to create 1,000 new jobs to cope with its expansion, with the remaining 500 staff hired to replace those expected to leave as a result of natural employee turnover. Virgin Atlantic employs 8,500 people around the world. Virgin will recruit 1,100 cabin crew members, and 300 staff to be based at Heathrow and Gatwick in flight deck and engineering roles. It also needs 100 staff at its West Sussex headquarters. Virgin has been expanding with new routes to Australia, China, North America and India. The airline is pushing ahead with plans for new routes to the Caribbean and Dubai.


Sources

  • 5 August 2004: BBC News
  • 28 June 2005: The Guardian

Citation

Eurofound (2004), Virgin Atlantic, Business expansion in United Kingdom, factsheet number 61809, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61809.