British Airways’ owner could slash thousands more jobs as airline industry faces its ‘greatest crisis’
British Airways’ owner could slash thousands more jobs as the airline industry faces its ‘greatest crisis’.
IAG has already announced plans to axe 12,000 staff at BA after the Covid-19 outbreak forced it to ground most of its planes.
Chief executive Willie Walsh yesterday said those job cuts were part of a ‘group-wide restructuring’ that is ‘not specific to BA’.
Warning: Willie Walsh said job cuts were part of a ‘group-wide restructuring’ that is ‘not specific to BA’
The comments to MPs on the transport committee raised the prospect of similar action at IAG’s other airlines, Aer Lingus, Vueling and Spanish flag carrier Iberia.
Walsh warned the MPs that some airlines will not survive because they were ‘poorly run’ and ‘weren’t viable’ even before the pandemic.
Walsh said: ‘I wish every airline well in the current environment. ‘I hope to see many of them come through this. I firmly believe that not all of them will, because many of them were poorly run and quite honestly weren’t viable in good times.
‘I can’t see how they would be viable with the changing environment we’re all facing.’
Walsh denied IAG was ‘picking on’ BA. He said: ‘It’s not specific to British Airways.
‘It’s group-wide restructuring in the face of the greatest crisis that the airline industry and the airlines within IAG have faced.
‘We’re not doing anything that we don’t think is absolutely necessary to secure the survival of British Airways, and we’re doing exactly the same with the other airlines in the group, complying with the law as it is in the countries in which we operate.’
IAG fell 2.9 per cent, or 5.5p, to 184.95p.