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. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1280x1024, 173 KB) Boeing 737-800 - Air Berlin - Catering in EDDH photo by Aldipower File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Gate Gourmet ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1280x1024, 173 KB) Boeing 737-800 - Air Berlin - Catering in EDDH photo by Aldipower File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Gate Gourmet ... Air Berlin (FSE: AB1) (IATA: AB, ICAO: BER, and Callsign: Air Berlin) is a major low-cost airline based in Berlin, Germany. ... Hamburg Airport (IATA: HAM, ICAO: EDDH) (German: ) is the international airport of Hamburg, Germany. ... A typical airline meal An airline meal is a meal served to passengers on a commercial airliner. ... Location within Switzerland   Zürich[?] (German pronunciation IPA: ; usually spelled Zurich in English) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 366,145 in 2004; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ... Lake Anne Plaza in Reston Reston is a planned community and an unincorporated census-designated place located in western Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. ...

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, Qantas Airways, Aerolineas Argentinas, Northwest Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Air France, Delta Air Lines, Continental Airlines, Emirates Airlines, Thai Airways, Swiss International Air Lines, and Amtrak. ISO 4217 Code CHF User(s) Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Campione dItalia Inflation 1. ... For the 1930s airline of similar name, see British Airways Ltd. ... American Airlines (AA) is the largest airline in the world in terms of total passengers-miles transported [1] and fleet size[], and the second-largest airline in the world (behind Air France-KLM) in terms of total operating revenues[]. A wholly owned subsidiary of the AMR Corporation, the airline is... United Airlines, Inc. ... Qantas is Australias oldest and largest airline, and the worlds second oldest airline (after KLM). ... Aerol neas Argentinas is Argentinas largest domestic and international airline. ... Northwest Airlines is an airline headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota in the United States of America. ... Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España, S.A. (Iberia Airlines of Spain in English), usually shortened to Iberia, is the largest airline of Spain, based in Madrid. ... Air France (Compagnie Nationale Air France) is a subsidiary of Air France-KLM. Before its merger with KLM, it was the national airline of France, employing 71,654 people (as of January 2005). ... Delta Air Lines, Inc. ... Continental Airlines (IATA: CO, ICAO: COA, and Callsign: Continental) (NYSE: CAL) is a certificated air carrier of the United States. ... Emirates are Islamic territories ruled by Emirs (q. ... Thai Airways may refer to the present day airline Thai Airways International. ... Swiss International Air Lines (short: Swiss) is the principal airline of Switzerland operating scheduled services in Europe and to North America, South America, Africa and Asia. ... Acela Express in West Windsor, NJ Amtrak Cascades service with tilting Talgo trainsets in Seattle, Washington Amtrak train in downtown Orlando, Florida For other uses, see Amtrak (disambiguation). ...

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. The company was sold in 2002 to Texas Pacific Group for $870 million. The Texas Pacific Group (commonly referred as TPG) is a private equity investment firm founded by David Bonderman, James Coulter and William Price in 1993. ...

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; the staff were gathered in a car park and the announcement made by megaphone. ^[1] 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. The Grunwick dispute over trade union recognition at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in North London was a controversial period in the late 1970s. ... Template:A year The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... London Heathrow Airport (IATA airport code: LHR, ICAO airport code: EGLL, and often simply Heathrow) is the United Kingdoms busiest and best-connected airport. ... 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in August August 31: Michael Sheard August 26: Lord Fitt August 24: Jack Slipper August 24: Maurice Cowling August 24: Dr. Tom Pashby August 23: Brock Peters August 22: Lord Lane August 21: Robert Moog August... For the 1930s airline of similar name, see British Airways Ltd. ... Picketing is a form of non-violent resistance in which people congregate outside a place of work or location where an event is taking place and attempt to dissuade others from going in (crossing the picket line). It has two main aims: to harm the business or activity by losing... The Transport and General Workers Union, also known as the TGWU and the T&G, is one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland - where it is known as the Amalgamated TGWU - with 900,000 members (and was once the largest trade union in the... A wage is a compensation which workers receive in exchange for their labor. ... An employment contract is an agreement entered into between an employer and an employee at the commencement of the period of employment and stating the exact nature of their business relationship, specifically what compensation the employee will receive in exchange for specific work performed. ... For the 1930s airline of similar name, see British Airways Ltd. ... Insolvency is a financial condition experienced by a person or business entity when their assets no longer exceed their liabilities (commonly referred to as balance-sheet insolvency) or when the person or entity can no longer meet its debt obligations when they come due (commonly referred to as cash-flow...

On March 1 2007 Texas Pacific Group sold its remaining shares in Gate Gourmet to Merrill Lynch.

References

1. ^ Personnel Today, 31 August 2005

External links

• – official website of Gate Gourmet
• "Why protest is top of the menu for catering staff" – The Guardian, 27 August 2005
• Articles about striking Gate Gourmet workers at libcom.org