THE AVIATION services company Servisair has implemented a pay freeze for its near 300 staff at Dublin airport and has signalled that it could seek job cuts due to “huge losses in business”.

In a letter sent to Siptu on January 9th, Servisair said it was going through an “extremely difficult period” with “huge losses in business”, including Futura Gael, Excel and AmericanTransAir.

“We will not be in a position to make any additional pay awards for 2009 and, unfortunately, we have no option but to implement a pay freeze,” the company informed Siptu. “On top of this, we would also need to review our costs based on current wage structures within Servisair stations, along with the overall percentage of full-time and part-time staff required for the operation at Dublin airport in particular.”

In addition, Servisair told Siptu that it wanted to negotiate “similar ideas and initiatives” that were agreed by the union recently with Aer Lingus and Aviance. These involved changes to working practices, pay cuts and redundancies.

Servisair recently made seven managers in Dublin redundant – about half its senior management there. “At present, we have managed to keep the department staff redundancies to a minimum,” it added. “Unfortunately, the reality is that, given the losses in business, this level of change will not be sufficient to keep the Dublin station a viable and competitive supplier of services through 2009 and 2010,” the company said.

A spokesman for Siptu said it would resist any job cuts and also rejected the suggestion that Servisair was not in a position to meet the terms of the national pay deal.

Siptu highlighted the fact that Servisair more than trebled pre-tax profits in 2007 to €4.45 million. “This approach is very opportunistic,” the spokesman said. Siptu said Servisair workers earn about €11.78 an hour, which includes their shift rate. The union said “front of house” staff at the company had their working weeks cut by about six hours each from January 1st.