TUPE would not apply.

"transfers by share take-over because, when a company's shares are sold to new shareholders, there is no transfer of the business: the same company continues to be the employer"


ACAS

In my long held view, all such carrier mergers must go the whole hog. Eventually. When they have:

• saved money and jobs in all other ways
• have introduced new managers who have worked with the idea from day one
• spent years moving the mgmt closer together
• prepared the Unions

THEN they can merge and save a great deal on jobs, offices and money. Regualr commercial companies do that at the start but airlines are thought of differently by many people in many areas.

Lastly, as I have said before but I want to bore you all one more time :p: Eventually, there will be half a dozen mega carriers that sub out their operations to others. The mega carriers are already with them and they are:

• One World
• Star Alliance
• Sky Team
• 4th yet to form but will be Asian

I sit to be corrected - but we might have to wait 30 years to see if I'm right!

Sorry, but how would 'TUPING' all your staff onto new contracts save a great deal of cash? TUPE is about protecting the terms and conditions currently enjoyed by employees, under the new employer.

Management would be keen to create a situation whereby TUPE won't apply, but that current contracts cannot be maintained for whatever reason, therefore creating the opportunity of forcing all staff onto inferior terms and conditions. It would be a difficult set of circumstances to create and see off, but certainly possible.

Hi all;

Eye to the fact: In my opinion, if British Airways shows its financial or economical problems for various reasons in the future, I don´t know....Mr. Rajoy will take steps to reduce or eliminate such problems since the Government of Spain is the largest shareholder of IAG. In what way? I do not know...:sad:

Why? Well, do not forget that Spain is in an extraordinary situation, very bad. Spain has asked for money to pay the unemployed (dole), civil servants (salaries), health etc..So, Spain "The Government" is not willing to support BA.

In addition to this, in the coming days taxes are going to increase again and lots of economical and social mesures are going to take place in Spain.

The times we live today are not like the days of the past....:cool:

Are we not loosing sight of the fact that the Spanish Government will in effect own 12% of the group, that meaning its is a major, and as has been said the largerst single shareholder. However what it is not is the majority owner so whilst it can exert influence maybe it cannot impose it's will.

NEWYEAR - I have no doubt that Rajoy will try to increase taxes on companies - an example being the rise in VAT / sales tax this week. There are likely to be further measures - e.g. an increase in social taxes paid by a company on behalf of employees, such as health insurance. If companies are told they have to pay a one-off tax, or the increase in tax is modest, they may make a noisy protest, but usually will just end up paying.

However, if corporate taxes become *too* high (e.g. companies pay tax of 60% on their profits), then IAG is likely to reconsider where it is registered, and possibly move its base to somewhere other than Spain. This principle applies not only to IAG in Spain but all multinational companies throughout the world. The Spanish Govt knows this, and will be reluctant to scare off too many large companies too fast.

It is likely as well, that Bankia will be told to sell most, if not all, of its stake in IAG on the basis that if it needs taxpayer money to save it from bankruptcy, then it has no business investing spare cash elsewhere. The Spanish Govt needs the money and cannot afford to play equity investor right now. A far bigger concern should be who will likely buy a 12% equity stake in IAG, and how much they will try to interfere with what IAG does. Perhaps one of the Middle East airlines tries to get IAG to route more of its Asian passengers through a hub in the Gulf, at the cost of direct Europe-Asia flights ?

Are they not 'TUP'G' BAWC staff to IAGCL this has already been announced to the BAWC BA staff a few weeks ago.

IAG can do what they wish to the staff and will do so.

And another:

A lot of interesting discussion on the corporate structure and employment contracts, but what about the punter?

We all know that for Iberia(n peninsular), read Madrid, and for British read London, but just exactly what would a merged airline be called? Outside the industry and a few FT readers, no-one knows who the hell IAG are or what they do.

A new brand would have to be built from scratch. We accept Oneworld as an alliance, but it is not an airline, nor is there a proposal for these alliances to operate as such, apart from shared marketing / loyalty and a few promotional decals on some members' aircraft.

So we'd be back to the marketing people to dream up "Consigniair" or some other meaningless name to express the shared values of their core markets, of which there are, of course, very few.

Any suggestions?

IBERIA has such a bad reputation for Customer service, even in Spain; so any merged airline should be called British Airways or "Span-bair"

Aero Mierda de España.

Could go back to the 1940s and call it British South American Airways. BA probably still owns the name.