07 January 2009

'Far-reaching' shake-up for BA

LONDON - British Airways staff have been told the airline will be undertaking a restructure that will be Ã¢â¬Åâœfar- reaching, reshaping our company from top to bottomÃ¢â¬~.

The airlineÃ¢â¬â¢s chief financial officer Keith Williams made the announcement in the latest issue of the airline's staff newspaper.

"Only through delivering fundamental change can we achieve the small profit we are targeting this year and emerge from the crisis as a strong global player," he said.

BA has already lost 480 managers after offering voluntary redundancies to 1,400 people.

The majority of these left at the end of December.

A BA spokesman said the airline was looking at further ways to reduce costs and duplication in order to increase efficiency and meet the economic challenges that will no doubt continue in 2009.

"The previous year has been tough and the year ahead could be even tougher," he said.

Meanwhile, at a briefing for LondonÃ¢â¬â¢s financial press yesterday, BA chief executive officer Willie Walsh said he was confident the proposed alliance with American Airlines will be approved.

He said the tie-up might even come in time for the next winter timetable.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœThe environment is very different today to last time and there has been no great opposition from the industry in the US,Ã¢â¬~ he told Bloomberg reporters.

Walsh said he was also confident about completing the planned merger with Iberia, with the Spanish airline now having a better understanding of BAÃ¢â¬â¢s pension deficit.

But even if both tie-ups fail, Walsh said this wasnÃ¢â¬â¢t a Ã¢â¬Åâœbig problemÃ¢â¬~, because in the current economic climate there were plenty of airlines for acquisition.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœI get phone calls from CEOs all the time saying, Ã¢â¬ËœPlease buy us.Ã¢â¬â¢ We have to be picky,Ã¢â¬~ he told Bloomberg.

Load factors in December fell 0.2 points to 76.7%, due to a 12.1 fall in premium traffic and a 1.7% fall in non-premium traffic.

By Bev Fearis