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<\/p>\nDixons Carphone is to close its airport store business, affecting 400 staff, after the government stopped tax-free airside shopping at the start of January.<\/p>\n
The electricals to mobile retailer said employees would all be offered alternative roles within the group, which owns the Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse brands.<\/p>\n
Dixons Travel has 35 stores and has typically contributed more than £20m to annual profits.<\/p>\n
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The group said: “We do not expect passenger numbers to recover sufficiently to compensate for the removal of airside tax-free shopping by the UK government from 1 January.<\/p>\n
“This has led to the difficult decision to close this business.”<\/p>\n
The announcement came as Dixons Carphone also said that – thanks to strong recent sales – it was paying back £73m in furlough support from the government.<\/p>\n
In December, the group’s chief executive Alex Baldock had faced questions<\/strong> over why the money was not being repaid as it swung to a half-year profit.<\/p>\n It has also now repaid all of the £144m in VAT that had been deferred by the government.<\/p>\n In a trading update, the company said like-for-like sales in its UK and Ireland electricals division were up by 11% in the 25 weeks to 24 April despite the continued closure of stores, thanks to “very strong online growth”.<\/p>\n That was an acceleration on the 8% pace of growth seen over the peak Christmas trading period.<\/p>\n Dixons Carphone also said that group electricals online sales were expected to more than double to £4.5bn for the full year.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/20\/12\/768x432\/image_5208984.jpg\")
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