HMSHost, which operates concessions at Jacksonville International Airport, filed a notice with state officials saying 190 workers at the airport could be permanently laid off in October.
The letter sent Aug. 11 under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, said the company began furloughing workers in March as the COVID-19 pandemic reduced travel through the airport.
“While it is our desire to see our airport and motorway traffic return and bring back all our valued associates, and while we reasonably believed this would be possible by summer, the unfortunate (and in March unforeseeable) reality is that it is going to take a significant period for our business to recover,” the letter said.
The 190 workers who have been temporarily furloughed will be converted to a permanent layoff on Oct. 16 if they have not been recalled by Oct. 15, it said.
HMSHost says it operates in more than 120 airports and 80 travel plazas.
In addition to its notice of layoffs in Jacksonville, it also filed notices for a total of 528 layoffs at the airports in Tampa, Fort Myers and Sarasota.
Passenger traffic tumbled at JAX after the pandemic hit. In May there were 38,592 passenger departures and 39,707 arrivals. By comparison, in February there were 243,993 departures and 247,787 arrivals.