More aircraft to be grounded
Iberia is planning a new round of cuts including reductions in capacity and grounding aircraft.
The Spanish carrier described the moves as an "acceleration" of its contingency plan and "anti-crisis measures."
The measures will include:
- Capacity cuts amounting to 6%,above the previous figure of 4.3%
- The grounding of three more aircraft on top of the six already taken out of service
- New staff cuts beyond the 4.7% of staff already made redundant in Q2
- Postponement of the delivery of an Airbus A340/600.
Iberia, which is in merger talks with BA, said the drop in revenues was the biggest problem airlines were facing.
It said its unit revenues had fallen by 16.5% while its unit passenger revenues were down 15.5%.
It said this was "in keeping with worldwide trends as business travel plummets and fares are being cut in an environment of oversupply."
Iberia said business class travel was its "worst hit segment."
The airline said cuts had already helped it reduce operating costs by 12.8% in the second quarter of 2009, twice the amount for the first quarter.
Iberia said it had made a Q2 loss of €72m which necessitated the new measures.
But it said during the quarter it had also increased its load factor and gained market share on some routes.
Load factor rose to 81.3%, the highest for the quarter among Europe's major carriers, while it gained market share on Europe-Latin America routes to 20.8% and from Madrid to European cities to 43.4%.
The airline said in a statement: "A key objective of Iberia's contingency plan is to safeguard the company's strong financial position during the crisis.
"In spite of the global financial crisis and the difficult situation of the airline industry, it has succeeded in this objective, posting a gross cash position of €2,241m, which was only 1.4% below the position at the end of 2008."
The new plans come six weeks after the appointment of a new ceo and chairman at Iberia, Antonio Vázquez who took over the two roles fromFernando Conte in July.
http://grupo.iberia.es