Sussex airline employees were bracing themselves for job cuts today after Virgin Atlantic announced it was to axe 1,200 posts worldwide.

Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Crawley-based airline, said the job losses had been forced on the airline because of the "exceptional circumstances" of the terrorist attacks in New York.

But he added: "It is clear to everyone that there has been significantly less traffic across the North Atlantic for some time."

Virgin, whose head office is at Manor Royal, Crawley, is grounding five of its 31 aircraft from next month and is cutting flights to America and Canada from 17 to 14 a day.

It will continue to operate seven flights a day from Gatwick to America but from mid October it is suspending its daily service to Toronto.

The airline employs 9,000 staff worldwide, of which 7,400 are in the UK.

A spokesman said: " We will take all possible measures to avoid compulsory redundancies and will offer job opportunities in the rest of the Virgin group."

He said volunteers would be sought for redundancy but jobs would be cut across the board and would include pilots, cabin crew and office staff.

Virgin Action, the group's leisure and health club business, is creating 700 new jobs and will be giving priority to Virgin Atlantic staff.

A Gatwick spokesman said it was too early to say how many people would be affected at the airport.

There would be a knock-on effect as flights from other airports were suspended.

The airline employs 3,600 cabin crew and 650 on the flight deck.

He said it was inevitable there would be job losses at the Crawley office, which employs 2,000 staff.