by Martin Jefferies

Jobs could be lost at Kent International Airport after it launched a widescale review of all staff.

Charles Buchanan, chief executive of Infratil, the company which owns Manston airport, said it was reviewing "working patterns and conditions of all staff".

The consultation will last for at least 90 days.

Mr Buchanan (pictured below) said: "We have more than 100 employees at Manston, many of whom have been with us for years and joined when the airport was under different ownership.

"We are now in a situation where some of the working arrangements we have in place do not match the current activity of the business.

"This is something we must rectify to ensure the airport has a sustainable future and that we match our resources to the needs of our customers."

Mr Buchanan said Infratil was not planning to "identify significant redundancies".

But he added: "At this stage, I cannot guarantee that there won't be some job losses.

"We are also reviewing all our external contracts to consider which of these could be performed more effectively in-house, possibly creating new positions at the airport.

"As the consultation will last a minimum of three months it is impossible to say what the outcome will be."

The news comes just days after budget airline Flybe announced it was scrapping its Manston-Manchester route and replacing it with flights to Belfast.

More than 28,000 people travelled through the airport in the 10 months to the end of January compared to just 4,200 a year before, as a result of the new scheduled services to Edinburgh and Manchester.

However, the amount of freight handled by the airport fell to 1,800 tonnes in January - down by almost a third on the previous year.

The airport terminal building was recently refurbished and is capable of handling up to 700,000 passengers every year.

Infratil recently announced that passenger numbers at another of its airports, Glasgow Prestwick, fell by 40 per cent in January compared to the year before.

The company has a strong presence in New Zealand, where it owns Wellington Airport and the NZ Bus operation.