BA is just a normal FTSE company, it can fail
The current dispute has clearly affected forward bookings and the main problem that manifests itself is that our potential passengers are not booking and depositing funds with BA in advance of their journey.
Operationally, from a financial point of view, BA has the twin problems of having to fly the current program for passengers having already paid for their trips, and secondly, seeing a severe downturn in the level of cash being deposited by potential future passengers.
It is probable that BA will have to secure facilities to trade their way out of this current difficulty and back to the norm of having healthy receipts from future passengers which would fund the cash flow required to operate the current program.
Clearly, if the financial institutions that back BA start to get nervous and limit borrowing then that borrowing will be sought from alternative sources at an increased rate. It may even require an approach to HM Treasury to secure the borrowing but that would hopefully be a discrete affair given the alarm that such an approach from Northern Rock caused. Additionally, such financial guarantees would come with strings and that would be limiting and undesirable.
In short, there could be a domino effect. It could certainly bring the company down but I feel confident that Mr Walsh will avert this if at all possible. In the end, he may find himself running short of working capital and no willing lenders which will take matters out of his hands.
It would be a very sad epitaph for such a wonderful company but history will relate that it went under because a crew member felt unable to assume a working position on a trolley. Not entirely true but it has some credibility.