LIVERPOOL AIRPORT RECRUITMENT DAY

© Liverpool John Lennon Airport

LIVERPOOL John Lennon Airport (LJLA) is to host a Recruitment Day to help fill hundreds of vacancies on offer.

The Speke-based airport is gearing up towards the arrival of Jet2 in late March, and is seeking people to fill over 190 vacancies at the airport.

This summer, the airport is expecting its busiest season in over 5 years, with an extra 500,000 passengers travelling through it to one of the 20 destinations that Jet2/Jet2 Holidays are launching.

The aim of the recruitment day is to ensure the airport is sufficiently staffed throughout its busiest period, as well as maintaining the great passenger service it has to offer – which has helped the airport being named the UK’s Best Airport 2023 in a Which? Best survey.

The annual recruitment event, which the airport organises on behalf of several employers each year, will take place on Thursday 11th January 2024 from 10am-4pm in the main terminal building.

Many of the 192 jobs on offer are mainly full-time, with some part-time jobs on offer too. The event will provide people with the opportunity to speak to representatives from each company with no appointment required.

Many of the jobs on offer include; aircraft dispatch, airlines sales desk, aviation security officers, passenger assistance for people with disabilities, catering and related front of house roles, bar work and retail work.

These roles will be on offer from a number of employers including; Jet2.com, aviation security company Wilson James, catering company SSP, passenger assistance company ABM and retailers such as Boots and duty free shop operator Dufry.

Carol Dutton, Liverpool John Lennon Airport’s HR & Community Director commented, “With a busy summer season ahead and employers here at the airport wanting to ensure our passengers continue to have the best possible airport experience, it’s important to once again make sure that the many vacancies on offer here at the airport are filled in time for the Summer.

We’ll therefore be delighted to welcome along prospective employees who may be considering a career at the airport, to our latest Recruitment Day next Thursday where they will be able to find out about a host of positions currently available across a diverse range of employers, with many hopefully going on to start work here in the coming weeks.”

Anyone wanting to attend the event, can travel to the airport directly using a number of public bus services or can travel by train to nearby Liverpool South Parkway. Alternatively, complimentary parking will be made available for those wanting to travel by car.

If you wish to attend the event, you can visit the airports dedicated Recruitment Day page on the airport website: https://www.liverpoolairport.com/recruitment-day

Liverpool Airport: Balance or just excuses?

A NEW in-depth report highlighting the economic impact of Liverpool Aiport has been written by Tony McDonough for Liverpool Business News, here:

Special report: Huge cost of halting airport growth

The report highlights how huge the economic cost to the Liverpool City Region would be if the expansion of Liverpool Airport wasn’t given the green light.

At the moment, LJLA contributes an estimated £340 million to the city region each year and supports over 5,000 jobs. But, under the expansion plans this is estimated to increase to over £600 million per year and job creation would rise to over 12,000.

The report goes on to say that the regions economy pre-pandemic was worth £5 billion per year with overseas visitors increasing over the past 10 years. But, with the city’s poor transport links to the airport, foreign investors are stopping short of investing.

So, when Lufthansa announced in December 2021 that it would be launching a new route to its central hub in Frankfurt from LJLA in May 2022 (https://www.liverpoolairport.com/news/2021/12/lufthansa-connects-liverpool-globally) it brought much needed hope – especially at a time when the travel industry was being savaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The launch of this new route is seen as boost in confidence for not just the airport, but the city region itself and could open up new ‘runways’ of investment in the future.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous blog post, there is big opposition to the plans for LJLA to expand, so are the reasons given an object of balance? Or are they just excuses?

Firstly, business leaders in the region are calling for ‘open dialogue’, and say the “anti-airport sentiment”, by leaders and decision makers “should be avoided”, and is sending out a “negative message”.

Chief Executive of Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, Paul Cherpeau, says: “We should be working collaboratively with our airport, using it as a tool of our economic recovery and rebuild whilst ensuring it minimises its iversll environmental impact.”

Also in the report by LBN Daily, a blunt statement released by Chairman of Downtown in Business, Frank McKenna says: “The commercial naivety of this resolution beggars belief.

“Do councillors not appreciate the cash, the jobs, the significant benefits the airport, directly and indirectly, brings to the city region economy? Did they not question the impact that this will have on the Freeport initiative?”

The opposition seems to be coming from Liverpool City Council leaders itself and they’re using the ‘net zero carbon targets’, as the excuse as to opposition to the airports expansion.

Whilst acknowledging the airport “supports a huge amount of investment and jobs in our city and it’s success is vital to our economic heath”, Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson is using the excuse of the council having “declared a climate emergency”, and the regions “commitments to a net zero carbon city and country”, as the reason for opposition. Also, the mayor added that “much had changed”, since the airport first released its masterplan. However, the mayor did add: “Clearly a balance needs to be achieved where economic growth is sustainable for the planet and any airport development in this country would need to be both financially and environmentally sound.”

Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram also acknowledged the “strategic importance” of LJLA to the region in “terms of international connectivity and as a vital local employer with good, unionised jobs”.

But, in similar fashion to Mayor Joanne Anderson, Mr Rotherham also mentioned: “we must strike a balance between continuing to attract inward investment to our city region and our ambitious net zero targets”.

For me, personally, all I’m hearing is the same excuse being peddled out as to why LJLA shouldn’t expand. Not one person in charge, or who has significant ‘pull’, are coming up with alternative plans for both sides of the argument to work together. It seems we’re going down the ‘normal’ route of debate when we already know how the council are going to vote in future anyway. It seems to be time wasting exercise. But, those who want this expansion (myself included), won’t give up.

I believe that our carbon footprint needs to be reduced, but this can’t be for the sake of progress and better paid jobs for the local economy. Cities such as Manchester and now Leeds are seeing investment by the bucket load, but Liverpool seems to always be stuck in a debate about heritage or net zero and it’s stifling economic growth.

Airlines such as Ryanair are moving routes out of Liverpool and moving them to Manchester and Leeds Bradford Airport is seeing investment and route connections return. This can’t continue and something needs to be done.

LJLA needs this expansion sooner rather than later and we cannot afford to have another situation of debate, delay, debate, delay. We’ve got a plan. Now, we need action. And, the council and its leaders need to back business and allow the airport to be expanded.

The excuses need to stop.

A decade on…

As many of you may not know, next week (14 January) will see, ‘ITV News at Ten’ celebrate ten years since it was reinstated to the ITV schedule.

A little bit of history…

‘ITV News at Ten’ began as a 12-week experiment on 3 July 1967, presented then by Andrew Gardner and Sir Alastair Burnet. ITV schedulers at the time, wanted to trial the UK’s first half-hour news programme, but many ITV regional bosses weren’t in favour of it.

 

Original ‘News at Ten’ logo.

Newscasters, Andrew Gardner, Alastair Burnet

However, after its first week on air, the ITV executives were still not convinced the viewing public were interested in 30 minutes of hard-hitting news five nights per week, and immediately wanted the bulletin axed. But, Newscasters Gardner and Burnet fought back and asked for more time. By the summer of 1969, the programme was a huge success regularly attracting over 12 million viewers per night. In the words of Editor Nigel Ryan, ”we knew we were safe”.

‘News at Ten’ is credited with creating the ‘reporter package’ – placing the reporter in front of the camera, and having them standing on location reporting to the viewers back at home what was happening? And why?

The iconic programme also made stars out of its newscasters. Sir Alastair Burnet, Anna Ford, Julia Somerville, Alastair Stewart, and (probably the most famous of them all), Sir Trevor McDonald – all became household names and trusted – the viewers listened to every word they said.

Sir Trevor McDonald on the set of ‘News at Ten’.

‘News at Ten’ had become part of British culture, but in 1998, ITV announced it was to axe the bulletin to make way for ‘higher rated’ programmes, and because of the rise of online news and 24-hour news channels. This led to an outcry, with MPs even debating the issue in parliament, with Gerald Kaufman MP saying ITV were moving the popular bulletin purely ”for money”. ITV were given permission by the ITC (now Ofcom), to move the bulletin. It last aired on 5 March 1999.

In October 2007, then ITV Chairman, Michael Grade announced plans to reinstate ‘News at Ten’ to the TV schedules in January 2008. Grade, called the axing of the bulletin in 1999 a ”shocking mistake”, and the decision had ”damaged ITV more than anything else”.

The programme returned to ITV on 14 January 2008 with Sir Trevor McDonald lured out of retirement to present alongside Julie Etchingham (Mark Austin took over from Sir Trevor in October 2008). It had its own unique branding and studio, and the iconic ‘bongs’ and ‘And finally’, also made a return.

 

‘News at Ten’ logo 2008-2009.

Mark Austin, Julie Etchingham, Sir Trevor McDonald.

Over the years, the bulletin has changed; Trevor McDonald retired (again), it lost its independent identity and was realigned to match the current ITV News output, and ITV channel controllers even moved the bulletin to 22:30 for six weeks in early 2017, in order to trial the ‘Nightly Show’ (which failed miserably).

The current update to ‘News at Ten’ was launched in January 2016. Tom Bradby, took over presenting duties and the programme has taken on a less ‘formal’ approach, allowing for more discussion on important issues, more examination of the details and to expand the audiences knowledge. The studio also incorporated images of ‘Big Ben’ striking 10pm, and the theme tune incorporated elements of the original from 1967.

 

‘News at Ten’ logo.

‘News at Ten’ revamped studio.

Despite all the changes, ‘News at Ten’ has remained an important part of history and celebrated fifty years since its first bulletin aired in July 1967. The way in which people read or watch the news has changed so much since 1967, but the programme still manages to reach millions per week, and (fingers crossed) will continue to do so, for many more years to come.

Here’s to another fifty years!

A horrifying night…

As many of us we’re out drinking, having fun with friends, watching TV, or simply getting ready for bed, a horrifying moment in history was unfolding in Paris.

Late on Friday night (13th November), the people of Paris were being attacked by an unknown group of people, intent on killing as many of them as possible.

As the night unfolded, news agencies were reporting that a group of men had stormed a restaurant, concert hall, and shopping mall – shooting people, one by one.

Earlier that evening, the French national football team were playing Germany in an international friendly at the Stade de France, when an explosion was heard outside the stadium – this (as we’ve come to realise now), was the start of the unlawful, and horrifying attacks on this city.

After that shuddering explosion, and reports of hostages being taken in a restaurant and concert hall, French President Francois Hollande, placed France on lockdown – closing its borders with neighboring countries, and flights in/out were cancelled.

Waking up on Saturday, the true realisation of what happened in Paris on Friday night came to fruition. 132 people sadly lost their lives in the attacks, 352 have been injured (99 of them critically) through a series of shootings and explosions.

Flowers placed outside Le Carillon, Paris via Sky News.

Terrorist group IS have claimed responsibility for the attacks, releasing a statement saying France and other countries will ”remain targets”, if they continue air strikes against the terror group.

Francois Hollande has called the attack an ”act of war’, and has announced three days of national mourning for the country.

Across the weekend we’ve seen countless images of some of the worlds most famous landmarks being lit up in french colours – from the Empire State Building in New York, to the Sydney Opera House in Australia, and St Georges Hall in Liverpool.

St Georges Hall, Liverpool lit up in french colours to show solidarity.

These attacks are absolutely sickening, and have been carried out by a group of people hellbent on causing heartache, destruction and war – wherever they can. In this terrible situation, it can be quick for people to judge a whole religion based on whats happened, but we have to remember it’s a small percentage of extremists who carried out this shocking event, not an entire religion. Instead of tearing ourselves apart at this terrible time, all religions should be coming together in solidarity, to send a message to IS – you may hurt us, but you’ll never defeat us.

#PrayForParis