British Airways to cut more jobs after a heavy loss

British Airways (BA) said on Friday that it plans to cut a further 1,200 jobs after reporting a heavy loss in the first-half of its financial year.

The further job cut means that the airline will have shed a total of 4,900 positions by March 2010.

The company suffered a loss before tax of 292 million pounds (about 485 million dollars) for the six months to the end of September, compared with profits of 52 million pounds a year earlier. It is also the first loss in first half of its financial year.

The first half of BA's financial year is usually stronger because it covers the summer holiday season. BA said revenue over the six-month period was down by 13.7 percent to 4.1 billion pounds, compared with 4.75 billion pounds in the same period of 2008.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh said that this had been the "most difficult year in the history of the aviation industry" and BA's revenue is likely to be one billion pounds lower this year."

Source: Xinhua