When the majority of passenger flights were grounded to reduce the spread of coronavirus in March, the airport's biggest employers responded by temporarily laying off ground staff.

While Certis Security failed to answer enquiries, Qantas, dnata Catering Australia and Swissport confirmed this week the majority of the 400-500 baggage handlers, traffic controllers, caterers and security staff employed at Canberra remained without work.

Performing ground duties for Virgin, Swissport employs 139 Canberrans in baggage handling, traffic control and passenger management positions.

Executive Vice President Asia-Pacific Glenn Rutherford said while no decision had yet been reached to terminate the Canberra workers jobs, the collapse of Virgin had put further strain on an already struggling aviation industry.

The company claimed if Virgin Australia failed to raise the money needed to keep afloat its suppliers would go unpaid, causing the aviation supply chain to collapse.

Mr Rutherford said Swissport was the second largest employer of ground staff at the Canberra Airport and was running at almost 100 per cent revenue loss.

Following Canberra Airport's two-day closure from April 15, the terminal has since reopened with limited flights to Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Newcastle.

Mr Rutherford said despite the disruption, the business still carried the majority of costs required to provide direction on the ground for 150 flights from Canberra.

He said office leases, equipment costs, annual leave accruals and training still had to be paid for to maintain government and the public's expectation to "snap right back in the future".

Mr Rutherford said the company was desperately seeking financial support from the Australian government of about $125 million for a package of tax relief, credit protection, loans and further wage support.

"I do wonder how the government will operate in Canberra should politicians not have access to flights," Mr Rutherford said.

Dnata catering Australia CEO Hiranjan Aloysius said the company had undertaken a series of measures to contain its costs while demand was down, including the temporary closure of the Canberra facility.

The airline service provider's $6.5 million kitchen in Canberra was one of four facilities to temporarily shut its doors, having opened just over 12 months ago.

Mr Aloysius said the company had stood 90 per cent of its workforce, including 35 Canberra-based permanent employees.

"With the recent announcement of a small domestic flying schedule, we will begin to stand back up employees to service this small number of flights," Mr Aloysius said.

Mr Aloysius said the company was working with large organisations to temporarily redeploy staff where possible.

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Transport union spokesperson Ben Sweaney said members and creditors had met with Virgin representatives and administrators this week to attempt to see the best possible outcome for the entire industry.

He said while he was not in a position to comment on whether Virgin could recover, if it did not the union wanted to ensure workers got what was owed.

"We don't want to see a repeat of what flowed down after the collapse of Ansett, with workers waiting up to 10 years to receive wages and entitlements," he said.

Qantas confirmed "a significant proportion" of its workforce in Canberra had been stood down last month, asked to draw on leave during the period of instability.

With Qantas currently operating just 16 flights a week from Canberra, Group CEO Alan Joyce said no airline was immune to the loss of revenue caused by coronavirus.

"This is a very hard set of circumstances for our people, as it is for lots of parts of the community right now," Mr Joyce said.