Citing a downturn in business as a result of COVID-19, airline catering company LSG Sky Chefs is preparing to lay off 576 workers at airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Ana.
The cuts are scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 and will impact 294 employees at Los Angeles International Airport, 210 at San Francisco International Airport and 72 at John Wayne Airport.
In a July 28 letter sent to state employment officials, Employee Relations and Compliance Manager Tracey Harness said the pandemic has made it hard to accurately assess staffing needs.
“Given the unpredictable nature of the current global pandemic which affects the frequency and volume of flights, and in turn, the amount of business Sky Chefs Inc. retains, the number of employees to be actually impacted by the mass layoff is unforeseeable and may change as we near the date of separation,” she wrote.
When contacted Friday, Harness said there will likely be fewer cuts, although she couldn’t say how big the reduction might be.
The layoffs will impact a variety of jobs, ranging from food production coordinators, sous chefs, supply clerks and utility workers, to vehicle mechanics, storekeepers, food-equipment handlers and account managers, among other positions.
Some of the affected employees are represented by Unite Here Local 11, while others are non-unionized.
With operations at 205 airports in 53 countries, LSG Sky Chefs delivers more than 560 million meals a year.
U.S. airlines carried 73.4 million passengers in July 2021, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That was well above 23.9 million in July 2020, the lowest monthly total dating back to 1974, but still 15% below the July 2019 total of 86.5 million.
In Feb. 2020, a group of Sky Chefs workers staged a three-day fast at LAX in an effort win the affordable health care and fair wages they said they deserved.
In a 2019 union survey among 124 of the 900 LSG Sky Chefs workers then employed at Los Angeles International Airport, 27% reported skipping or delaying care, prescriptions or medical treatment for themselves or their families because they couldn’t afford to pay for it.
