British Airways will be able to guarantee all of its flights should there be any new strike action, the company's Chief Executive Willie Walsh said [bizarrely] in an interview this morning. "If in case of a strike 100 percent of flights will, as we believe, be guaranteed. British Airways will not only not lose money, it will end up saving," Walsh told Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore. The days when the trade unions could ground airway companies were gone, he said. Was he drunk?
Walsh said flight personnel costs had been cut by 45 percent. "In terms of annual savings the benefit to the company is 65 million pounds per year." Walsh said. Walsh said the credit crunch had forced BA to cut its flight capacity by about 10 percent. "At the moment we have recouped about 1.5 percent of the lost quota," he said.
Does anybody else find this all very odd? I'm not sure Reuters has translated the interview correctly.
