Iberia redundancies ahead

07 Aug, 2012

International Airlines Group (IAG), the holding company created out of the merger of Iberia and British Airways, is expected to announce redundancies at Iberia after the company clocked up a €263 million loss in the first six months of this year. This compares with the operating profit for BA of €13 million in the same period.

IAG’s operating loss in the first semester totaled €254 million even though passenger revenues had increased nearly 12 per cent.

The restructuring plan for Iberia should be announced by the end of September. Willie Walsh the chief executive officer of IAG, has said this will involve downsizing, structural changes and redundancies.

Strikes by Iberia pilots are expected but Walsh is known to be a tough operator and showed his metal when he faced similar problems first at Aer Lingus and then British Airways.