Twenty-one ground staff at the airport have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Steve Quirk, station manager with Menzies Aviation, said it was a ’tough’ time for the men and women who work for the company at Ronaldsway.

He said they had been faced with a 60% reduction in flights during the events of this year.

He told the Manx Independent nobody could have predicted just how difficult Covid-19 would make life for everyone, including his team.

He confirmed that 21 staff had been made redundant - most were voluntary, ’a handful’ by compulsory measures and around five staff left of their own accord without taking any form of redundancy.

They include ramp agents who deal with passengers’ bags, operations controllers and passenger service agents.

But Mr Quirk said they had worked hard to continue to retain 47 men and women. He said: ’We have kept as many staff as we can.’

Originally from Liverpool, Mr Quirk has worked in the island for the last 15 years and applauded his hard-working team as ’highly skilled individuals who diligently go about their work, often behind the scenes, helping to ensure the airport operates efficiently’.

He said many of the staff have been with the company for a long time and morale was keeping up on the basis that there was hope that operations can improve in the future.

Mr Quirk said that the island’s ground staff had not fared as badly as in the UK where colleagues faced redundancies far quicker shortly after the health crisis erupted in March.

In the island the question of job losses was not raised till around July. And the ’final’ redundancy date was September 13.

Mr Quirk said everything had been done to keep redundancy levels down and this had included reducing hours in some cases.

He added that he receives regular updates from airlines along with the airport’s management and he gets the impression that they are ’chomping at the bit’ to grow their presence in the island.

But he acknowledges the reasons why the government is keeping the border controls as they are at the moment, to protect the island from a new wave of coronavirus.

The level of virus infections has been growing again recently, particularly just over the water in the north west of England.

He said there had also been another jobs blow with the temporary closure of the Rendezvous executive lounge, which was bought by Menzies Aviation last year.

Mr Quirk said: ’It has been a tough time.

’But there is nothing better than seeing a busy airport with lots of people and it will be great when we see more passengers coming through the airport once again.’

One of those who lost their job anonymously told the Manx Independent that ’those of us who have been put in these situations also have families’.

The person added that in their opinion the job losses ’will have a greater impact when things go back to normal’.

But manager Mr Quirk said those affected by the redundancy process have been promised that when things start improving and there is a need to once again increase staff numbers those who lost their jobs will get the first chance to re-apply.

Menzies Aviation, based in Scotland, is a provider of passenger, ramp and cargo handling services.

The true picture of unemployment on the island won’t be known for another month according to the Treasury Minister.

This week Alfred Cannan revealed the number of people without a job as of last Friday is 945.

It has dropped since April, when 1,300 people were unemployed amid the height of the health crisis.

Salary support schemes ended for most sectors last week, with payments of the Manx Earnings Replacement Allowance to stop by Sunday, September 20.