Gate Gourmet

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A Gate Gourmet catering truck servicing an Air Berlin aircraft at Hamburg Airport

Gate Gourmet is an airline catering firm with headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland and Reston, Virginia, USA.

As of 2004 it had 22,000 employees, a revenue of 2.4 billion Swiss Francs, and produced 195 million flight meals per year. Some of its clients are British Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Emirates Airlines, Thai Airways and Swiss International Air Lines.

Gate Gourmet's roots are in Swissair. For a long time Gate Gourmet was considered Swissair's "Crown Jewel". The company was worth roughly 6 billion Swiss Francs before September 11 and the bankruptcy of Swissair. The rise of the oil price made it so that many airlines, Gate Gourmet's main customers, went bankrupt. The weakness of the airlines affected the whole industry. Thus, all of a sudden the crown jewel of Swissair found itself in a restructuring effort, which was soon felt by its employees.

A major dispute, reminiscent of the Grunwick Dispute of the 1970s, ensued when it sacked 670 staff based at London's Heathrow Airport in August 2005. In sympathy with the sacked workers, British Airways staff at the airport walked out, and mass pickets of Gate Gourmet were organised by the TGWU. Several workers alleged that Gate Gourmet had manufactured the dispute, in order to employ non-union workers at lower rates of pay and with worse conditions of employment. The company subsequently offered a redundancy package of more than twice the statutory minimum in an effort to resolve the labour difficulties, secure a new deal with British Airways, and avoid insolvency. The union later negotiated the reinstatement of some of the employees, but others have continued to protest at their treatment.