Derbyshire aviation giant Rolls-Royce to axe thousands of jobs as Covid-19 cripples airline industry

Jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce has announced plans to lay off almost a fifth of its workforce, as the coronavirus crisis takes its toll on the aviation industry.

The company, which has its main aviation production base in Derby and employs thousands of people in Derbyshire, said it is targeting £1.3bn in annual cost savings to weather the protracted downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic that has grounded much of the world’s airlines.

Rolls-Royce, which employs 52,000 staff globally, said the job losses would be felt worst in its civil aerospace business, with about 8,000 roles being made redundant. The company also makes fighter jet, ship and submarine engines but it said there would be no job losses at its defence business.

Chief executive Warren East said: “It’s fair to say that of our civil aerospace business, approximately two-thirds of the total employees are in the UK at the moment and that’s probably a good first proxy.

“This is not a crisis of our making. But it is the crisis that we face and we must deal with it.

“Our airline customers and airframe partners are having to adapt and so must we.

“Being told that there is no longer a job for you is a terrible prospect and it is especially hard when all of us take so much pride in working for Rolls-Royce.

“But we must take difficult decisions to see our business through these unprecedented times.”

The International Air Transport Association does not expect air travel to recover to 2019 levels until 2023, which will affect demand for airline tickets, plane orders and the engines that Rolls-Royce makes for those jets.

But a key proportion of Rolls-Royce’s civil aerospace earnings comes from aircraft owners paying regular service fees to company. A global grounding of airline fleets has hit those revenues significantly.

Pre-lockdown Rolls-Royce engines carried millions of airline passengers around the world every week. The company makes engines for the Airbus A330, A340, A350 and A380 jets, as well as the Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner.

A message from the Editor: Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper. Thank you. Nancy Fielder, editor