Loss-making Iberia on Friday announced plans to axe 4.500 jobs to save Spain's biggest airline from collapse and warned more cuts could follow against the backdrop of economic crisis in the Euro zone country.
Rising fuel costs and the impact of Spain’s economic crisis left the owner of British Airways and Iberia nursing big quarterly losses. International Airlines Group was also hit by industrial action by pilots at Iberia as it recorded losses of 263 million Euros for the three months to March 31, against a deficit of 47 million Euros a year earlier.
Over sixty five years ago, British South American Airways (BSAA) began flying to South America. The flights, which began in March 1946, were via Lisbon, Bathurst, Natal, Rio de Janiero and Montevideo, before landing in Buenos Aires, 35 hours later. The aircraft: an Avro Lancastrian. How times have changed.
British Airways and Iberia have registered their merger, forming a holding company International Airlines Group SA.