Virgin Charter today announced that it has partnered with global travel management company Radius, which will use the online marketplace to find and book charter flights for its clients. The news is tempered, however, by reports that Virgin Charter has laid off a number of employees. “We have spent the last year building systems to automate the process of booking charter flights and providing trip management,” a company spokeswoman told AIN. “This automation eliminates much of the manual effort once required to perform this work. Our staff reductions were related to the evolution of our business strategy.” According to two sources close to the situation, the company laid off approximately 30 people, including a number of sales personnel who had been hired just this past summer. Virgin Charter did not confirm this number. At the NBAA Convention earlier this month, president and CEO Scott Duffy admitted that the online aircraft charter marketplace has seen a drop in sales over the past two months due to the economic turmoil. Duffy expressed confidence, however, that business would improve. “I think it’s going to be a tough period, but we’re all going to come out of this stronger,” he told AIN.