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British Airways is among many airlines that have seen passenger numbers shrink and bookings collapse
British Airways is to ground flights ‘like never before’ and lay off staff in response to the coronavirus.
BA boss Alex Cruz sent a video message to all staff on Friday warning jobs would go as a result of the impact of coronavirus on the airline’s business.
He also warned that the airline industry is facing a “crisis of global proportions” worse than SARS or 9/11.
The message was titled “The Survival of British Airways”.
Mr Cruz said: “We can no longer sustain our current level of employment and jobs would be lost – perhaps for a short term, perhaps longer term.”
The airline is in talks with unions but gave no further details about the scale of the likely job losses in the video message transcript seen by the BBC.
The airline boss said that British Airways, which is owned by FTSE 100 company IAG, was suspending routes and parking planes in a way they had “never had to do before”.
British Airways would “continue to do our best for customers and offer them as much flexibility as we can”, Mr Cruz said in the video.
‘Don’t underestimate this’
Although Mr Cruz said the British flag carrier airline had a strong balance sheet and was financially resilient, he told staff “not to underestimate the seriousness of this for our company”.
BA and other carriers’ revenues have been hit by the coronavirus response as governments close borders, companies ban lucrative business travel, conferences and events are cancelled and demand for leisure travel slumps.
The International Air Transport Association warned on Friday that global airline revenue losses would be “probably above” the figure of $113bn (£90bn) that it estimated a week ago, before the Trump administration’s announcement of US travel curbs on passengers from much of continental Europe.
Earlier this month, IAG said flight suspensions to China and cancellations on Italian routes would affect how many passengers it carried this year.
On Thursday Norwegian Air said it was set to cancel 4,000 flights and temporarily lay off about half of its staff because of the coronavirus outbreak.