Walsh Wants British Airways To Keep London Gatwick Flights After Coronavirus

British Airways may not close its London Gatwick hub after the coronavirus pandemic if staff unions compromise during consultations.

Willie Walsh, CEO of parent owner IAG, wants British Airways to keep flying at Gatwick.

“I would like to see us continuing to have a presence at Gatwick,” he told investors. He cautioned, “That’s just a personal opinion. It’s not going to influence the consultation that will take place.”

“We want to give the representatives an opportunity to influence the outcome of our final plan,” Walsh said.

The Gatwick hub received large attention after British Airways told staff last month, “We suspended our Gatwick flying schedule at the start of April and there is no certainty as to when or if these services can or will return.”

British Airways this summer was due to have about 85 daily flights at Gatwick compared to 349 at Heathrow.

Both airports are slot constrained. British Airways is the second-largest holder of Gatwick slots with 17%. EasyJet has 43%.

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Virgin Atlantic will move its London Gatwick flights to Heathrow for an unspecified period of time. It wants to “return in line with customer demand.”

Virgin intends to retain its Gatwick slots but did not specify how. Regulators have so far waived slot usage requirements only through October.

Any British Airways cuts at Gatwick would be part of a wider restructuring that is yet to be determined. British Airways said it could cut up to 12,000 jobs, or about a quarter of its workforce.

“The final outcome of what it is we do in British Airways will be very much influenced by the consultation that we have with representatives of the employees in British Airways,” Walsh said.

British Airways last week started the 45 day minimum consultation period that is required under U.K. law. Walsh expects the consultation to conclude in mid-June.

 “That consultation clearly is going to be a detailed and meaningful consultation with the representatives and we’ll see what happens through that,” Walsh said.

British Airways told its pilot union it could cut 1,130 jobs but it wants to “mitigate the impact and need for redundancies.” Its initial proposals are open to “reformulating them where viable to do so,” British Airways told the union.

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Management told pilots they could give “flexibility and efficiencies.” Alternatively, British Airways warned pilots redundancies would be paid out at minimum statutory obligations.

IAG plans to significantly resume flights starting in July. About 10% of planned capacity was operated across IAG’s airlines in the second quarter. The third quarter will see 45% of capacity operate, and then 70% in the fourth quarter. It does not expect 2019 passenger demand to return until at least 2023.