JD Wetherspoon will axe jobs up to 450 jobs at its airport pubs after trading plummeted and the pub chain swung into the red. The pub group sunk to a £105m pre-tax loss after sales declined by almost a third to £1.26bn for the year to July 26. The loss before exceptional items came in at £34.1m. Shares fell more than 13pc to 830p and have more than halved since the start of the year. Wetherspoon said it had started a consultation process to reduce staff numbers at its pubs in airports by up to 450, where sales are generally much lower and where a high percentage are still closed. It has already cut 108 jobs from its head office. Tim Martin, the company's chairman, hit out at the Government's "erratic" handling of the pandemic, while praising the soft-touch approach adopted by Sweden. He also said it was unfair that pubs have been treated harsher than supermarkets during the crisis, and called for "tax equality" among supermarkets, pubs and restaurants.