Luke May – Daily Mail April 28, 2020

• Madrid-based IAG says portion of BA’s 45,000 staff now face redundancy
• British Airways has grounded most of its flights, except a handful from Heathrow 
• ‘We are taking every possible action to conserve cash’ – BA CEO Alex Cruz 
• Pilots’ union ‘does not accept a case has been made for these job losses’ 

Thousands of British Airways workers look set to lose their jobs as its owners IAG announce redundancies on Tuesday afternoon.

Airline companies have been struggling to run as the coronavirus lockdown grounds planes around the world. BA had already started struggling after it furloughed more than half of its 45,000 workers.

In a statement, IAG said: ‘In light of the impact of Covid-19 on current operations and the expectation that the recovery of passenger demand to 2019 levels will take several years, British Airways is formally notifying its trade unions about a proposed restructuring and redundancy programme.

‘The proposals remain subject to consultation but it is likely that they will affect most of British Airways’ employees and may result in the redundancy of up to 12,000 of them.

As previously announced, British Airways has availed itself of the UK’s Covid-19 job retention scheme and furloughed 22,626 employees in April.’

Passenger numbers are expected to halve compared to 2019, with the likes of Flybe already going into administration before full lockdown measures were in place in Britain.

In a statement, BA chief executive Alex Cruz said the company is only running a ‘handful’ of flights from Heathrow each day.

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