John Menzies plc ( , ) is the holding company of Menzies Aviation plc, an aviation services business providing ground handling, cargo handling, cargo forwarding and into-plane (ITP) fuelling, based in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Scotland.
History
The company was founded by a bookseller, John Menzies, with his first shop in Princes Street, Edinburgh, in 1833. In 1941, the company's branch in
Greenock
Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowland ...
was destroyed in the
Greenock Blitz
The Greenock Blitz is the name given to two nights of intensive bombing of the town of Greenock, Scotland by the Nazi German ''Luftwaffe'' during the Second World War. The raids over the nights of the 6 and 7 May 1941 targeted the shipyards and ...
.
In January 1998, the company closed its principal branch in Edinburgh, although the head office continued to occupy the building. The whole retail operation was sold to
WH Smith
WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...
in May 1998, to enable Menzies to concentrate on its distribution business.
In January 2007, the company merged its newspaper and magazine wholesale distribution businesses in Northern Ireland into a joint venture with
Eason & Son, which became known as
EM News Distribution EM News Distribution is a magazine and newspaper distributor which operates in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The company is fully owned by Menzies Distribution.
The company was formed in 2007 by the merger of the Menzies Distributio ...
; the company acquired the 50% it did not own in May 2017.
On 31 January 2017, Menzies Aviation completed the acquisition of specialist aircraft fueller Aircraft Services International, Inc (ASIG) from BBA Aviation plc for US$202m. After a planned merger between the Menzies Distribution and the DX Group collapsed in August 2017, the company announced, in July 2018, that it had sold the distribution division to private equity company
Endless LLP, with the former owner retaining a 10% share in the business.
On 27 March 2020, the company confirmed it had been badly affected by the
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...
pandemic and reduced its headcount by over 17,500. The number of flights Menzies handled globally fell by 60% during the second quarter 2020.
In April 2022, it was announced Menzies Aviation had acquired the
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...
-based ground and air cargo handling services company, Agunsa Aviation Services.
On 30 March 2022,
Agility Logistics that it would acquire the company for £571 million and merge it with its existing wholly-owned subsidiary,
National Aviation Services.
Pronunciation
The name
Menzies is traditionally pronounced , as the "z" is historically the letter (
yogh
The letter yogh (ȝogh) ( ; Scots Language, Scots: ; Middle English: ) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing ''y'' () and various velar consonant , velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular G, Insular form of the letter ...
).
See also
*
Books in the United Kingdom
History
In 1477 William Caxton in Westminster printed '' The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres,'' considered "the first dated book printed in England."
The history of the book in the United Kingdom has been studied from a variety of cultu ...
Notes
References
{{reflist
External links
John Menzies plc company website
British companies established in 1833
Service companies of Scotland
Companies based in Edinburgh
Aircraft ground handling companies
1833 establishments in Scotland
Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom