Jobs axed as Alpha sounds alert

THE slowdown in international air travel has cost nearly 1,000 jobs at in-flight catering specialist Alpha Airports. The firm also warned off full-year losses, blaming £23m of one-off costs and write-offs.

Most painful for the group is its kitchen at Gatwick, which British Airways sold for £14m two and a half years ago. Since then BA has begun a withdrawal from Gatwick which could be accelerated next month after a root-and-branch review of the airline's operations.

Speaking of a 'significant reduction in our future catering activity and thus profit at our Gatwick kitchen', Alpha said it would write off £9.1m of goodwill in the operation and has laid off 180 staff there. A total of 923 redundancies will cost a further £3m, while there are write-offs on its retail operations at Orlando airport in the US and other British airports.

Alpha, which had been scheduled to make underlying profits of £19m in the current financial year, saw its shares fall 3 1/2p to 57 1/2p.