Drago Canarias has denounced this Friday in a press release that the English airline Jet2.com will dismiss more than a third of its staff in the Canary Islands —35%—, despite having received up to 2,863,056 million euros in the form of agreements and contracts from different Public Administrations.
Likewise, the airline confirms this staff cut after announcing last week an increase in the number of connections between the United Kingdom and the Canary Islands, precisely, in the islands where these layoffs will take place: Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.
This information has been located by the Public Policy Block of Drago Canarias, which regrets that, given the increase in routes and places by the airline, "they have taken the license to carry out a massive dismissal, which shows, once again, how precarious and extractivist the current mass tourism model is, which benefits from the Canary Islands without leaving a trace of money in our territory," the political formation said in a statement.
In this sense, according to Drago Canarias, the most substantial agreement between the Public Administration and Jet2.com occurred in 2022, when Turespaña granted it a total of two million euros for the execution of advertising, marketing and commercialization actions; while Tourism of Lanzarote came to benefit the airline with a total of 542,056 euros between 2020 and 2023, also for marketing campaigns.
In turn, Tourism of the Canary Islands signed an agreement in 2021 with Jet2Holidays for promotional campaigns for a total of 200,000 euros, while Tourism of Tenerife closed a contract in 2020 with Jet2.com for marketing campaigns for an amount of 121,000 euros.
For its part, the Public Policy Block of Drago Canarias emphasizes that the current tourism model not only plunders territory and generates numerous negative impacts on the Canarian population, such as the impossibility of accessing decent housing or reaching work centers in a reasonable time, but is also incapable of guaranteeing decent working and social conditions for its own staff, who will see their workload increase while improving their company's bottom line.
Therefore, Drago Canarias understands that the Public Administrations, especially the Canarian ones, "should proceed to the cancellation of all agreements, contracts or agreements they maintain with Jet2.com and its subsidiaries, as a sign of solidarity and protection towards the Canarian workers of this airline."
In addition, Drago Canarias shows its rejection of "this model of indiscriminate subsidies to all types of airlines, digital sales platforms, hotel establishments, tour operators and other agents in the tourism chain that systematically violate labor, social, environmental and urban planning regulations."
This information on the financing of Jet2.com has been extracted from various accessible and public documentary sources.
