Dixons Travel Stores to Close, Affecting 400 Employees – After Airside Duty Free Purchases End | Economic news

Dixons Carphone will close its airport shopping operations, affecting 400 employees, after the government halted duty-free shopping on the runways in early January.

The electrical equipment distributor said employees would all be offered alternate roles within the group, which owns the Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse brands.

Dixons Travel has 35 stores and has generally contributed over £ 20million to annual profits.

The group said: “We do not expect passenger numbers to recover enough to compensate for the removal of airside duty free purchases by the UK government from January 1.

“This led to the difficult decision to shut down this business.”

The announcement came as Dixons Carphone also said that – thanks to strong recent sales – it was repaying £ 73million in government support.

In December, the CEO of the group Alex Baldock had been faced with questions why the money was not paid back when it turned into a half-year profit.

He also reimbursed the full 144 million pounds of VAT that had been deferred by the government.

In a business update, the company said like-for-like sales of its electrical division in the UK and Ireland rose 11% in the 25 weeks leading up to April 24 despite continued store closures, thanks to “very strong online growth”.

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This was an acceleration from the 8% growth rate seen during the Christmas peak period.

Dixons Carphone also said the group’s online sales of electrical products are expected to increase …