BA to press ahead with job cuts plans

British Airways will press ahead with cutbacks that could result in 12,000 job losses, Willie Walsh, the chief executive of its parent company has said, despite the government’s extension of the furlough scheme. In a letter to the chair of the transport committee, Huw Merriman, Walsh said government pay support would not compensate for “the reality of a structurally changed airline industry in a severely weakened global economy”. The extension of the wage subsidy scheme announced by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, on Tuesday was intended to pull employers back from a “cliff edge” after which they would be forced to make redundancies.