Company boss Paul Stoddart is moving the airline to Bournemouth

The news was broken to them in a letter from the boss of European Aviation Air Charter, which is shedding around 600 jobs in total.

Paul Stoddart, who also owns the Minardi Formula One racing team, has taken the decision amid huge debts.

He has decided to start up the company again with just a handful of staff and aircraft based at Bournemouth airport.

'Small is beautiful'

Among the 220 people losing their jobs are cabin crews from across south-east England.

Richard Flagg, from Uckfield, in East Sussex said: "It's going to be very difficult, especially having been left in the lurch like this."

But company chief Paul Stoddart said there was no going forward in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York.

"It's very, very hard to make a very profitable living in this environment we find ourselves in today other than to go back to small is beautiful," he said.

He has promised that all the people who worked for him will receive all the pay owed to them up to the day they leave his company.

He also said he hoped some of the former employees would find work with the Icelandic firm Air Atlanta, which has taken on some of the firm's contracts.