IAG TO MERGE BA WITH IBERIA

[KERDUNKER]

Rumour is as a per thread and it is said BA pilot seniority list will be tacked onto end of Iberia seniority list :eek:

[wiggy]

Did you make that one up yourself?

:rolleyes:

[Flightmech]

THE PEANUT BAR must be in Madrid:E

[Evanelpus]

Rumour is as a per thread and it is said BA pilot seniority list will be tacked onto end of Iberia seniority list

I'm going to ask you to put down that jug of sangria, there's good lad.

[Aksai Oiler]

God forbid - iberia is the world's worst airline, with the world's worst ground staff being in Barajas

[Tableview]

God forbid - iberia is the world's worst airline, with the world's worst ground staff being in BarajasI'll second that. And it's not based on one or two bad experiences. It's based on many, many flights on Iberia both when I lived in Spain and subsequently. I'm not a masochist, but at the time I mostly had no choice.

Anyway, I don't think BA will be merged with IB.

[NEWYEAR]

The following is not a rumour and has nothing to do with the beginning....

Eye to the data, which is not small: following the nationalization in the coming days of Bankia, the Spanish State will be the major shareholder of International Airlines Group (IAG), the company resulting from the merger, two years ago, Iberia and British Airways.
Have you read it well: Spanish State is about to be the principal owner of the flag carrier airline of United Kingdom. :ok:

[pwalhx]

The Spanish state will be the major shareholder in IAG, of which BA is part, BA is not the British Flag Carrier.

[BHD2BFS]

Then who is? Easyjet?

[SWBKCB]

What's a Flag Carrier?

[EI-BUD]

BHD2BFS; Virgin claims to be the Flag Carrier for the UK since the controversial world scheme program by BA back in the 90's when BA added various aircraft tail scheme from different countries around the world. So perhaps the poster is referring to Virgin, who seized the moment to proclaim that it was proud to fly the flag and had this painted on it's aircraft both on the winglets and on the fuselage etc. Virgin is a minow in the grand scheme of things ex the UK. So to me BA is undisputed 'flag carrier'.

Easyjet are very pan european and 60% of their traffic originates outside of the UK I would say they are not. Besides being called a flag carrier is a badge and doesnt exactly mean profitability.

IAG is a profitable entity and a going concern, whether Bankia is a shareholder and hence the Spanish government is not very relevant, I would suggest that anything that is not core to the Bank would be sold and if so the share of IAG could be bought by BA at some point....

Nothing to worry about at all....

[pwalhx]

To me a flag carrier is the thing of the past, it is the carrier that represented a nation and inevitably with it was government owned or controlled.

Nowadays there are many airlines that represent the U.K. in different ways and to a different extent so I would say we do not have nor need a flag carrier.

However that digresses from the point I belive the poster who stressed the point that the British flag carrier was almost a Spanish national assett intended it to appear wrong or belittling, however that would be incorrect as many assetts in the U.K. are now foreign owned and controlled.

As an alternative could you say a British Flag carrier is any airline thats aircraft carry the British flag on its fuselage?

[davidjohnson6]

NEWYEAR - I'm not quite clear what you're trying to express. It seems that once Bankia is nationalised the Spanish state will have a 12% equity stake in IAG. Presumably the Spanish Govt would manage this at arm's length to avoid a charge of acting overtly as directors in what is essentially a private company. Certainly enough to ask for a seat on the board if Bankia so wish. Certainly enough for Spain to be able to exert influence behind the scenes if they so wish. A long way from having any kind of management control

[Heathrow Harry]

the Spanish Govt have a lot higher priorities than running an airline on a day to day basis

[NEWYEAR]

Well, the term is also used loosely to refer to any dominant or major airline sized carrier in a country, or in reference to a mainline carrier with a history of a state sponsored legacy of airline service, even long after their privatization.

Anyway, will see if Mr Rajoy has to ask something to Mr Cameron... :ok:
Flights...
Promotions...
T4...
Heathrow...
...:E

[HZ123]

Maybe I missed it but BAWC will be absorbed into IAG cargo as will IB and AA cargo operations, that is fact.

In the fullness of time indeed BA and IB staff will be TUPE'D onto IAG contracts thus saving a great deal of cash.

Surely this amalgamation or whatever we would like to consider it is merely set up to do just this. Exactly what has happened to BMI !

[EI-BUD]

AA cargo operations


Why would AA cargo operations be adsorbed into IAG? AA not owned by IAG/BA... yes BA have had asperations, and also where is the AA cargo operation based, I didnt realise that they had one.

[Omnipresent]

In the fullness of time indeed BA and IB staff will be TUPE'D onto IAG contracts thus saving a great deal of cash.

Surely this amalgamation or whatever we would like to consider it is merely set up to do just this. Exactly what has happened to BMI !

There are no IAG contracts. IAG is a holding/management company with a small set of staff. bmi was a different scenario to the formation of IAG from the merger of BA and IB.

And this is complete bunkum:

Rumour is as a per thread and it is said BA pilot seniority list will be tacked onto end of Iberia seniority list

BA and IB operations will not be merged.

The whole rationale behind the IAG structure is that airlines that join IAG keep their own brands and operations.

BA and IB have different brands and marketing positions and separate operations and it will stay that way (bmi was different in that was essentially bust and there was no logic in keeping the brand/operation separate from BA). That way you don't dilute the local commercial/operational expertise and market presence of BA and IB nor do you distract them from day to day operations, leaving IAG focused on overall group strategy and revenue/cost synergies from merging the back office functions in IT etc.

IAG has seen how hard it has been to merge large airline operations within the same country (see US Airways) and I don't think anyone would seriously contemplate a cross border merger of airline operations. It's more trouble than it's worth.

[GingerC]

There's another compelling reason for NOT merging airlines from different countries. At the moment flights between pairs of countries one of which is outside the EU are mostly still governed by bilateral treaties between the countries concerned, allowing only airlines domiciled in those countries to carry traffic. If you decide to merge, you automatically lose a significant part of your network. The EU is busy negotiating treaties that allow airlines domiciled in any EU country to fly from any other, and of course this already happens for flights wholly within the EU and for destinations as varied as the USA and Morocco, but it will take years for the whole world to be covered by these agreements.

[Fairdealfrank]

Can't see it happening, there is no need and no point!

AF and KL did not do it, nor did LH, LX, SN, OS, etc..

[TURIN]

In the fullness of time indeed BA and IB staff will be TUPE'D onto IAG contracts thus saving a great deal of cash.

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 (http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1655)

[PAXboy]

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!

[spider_man]

In the fullness of time indeed BA and IB staff will be TUPE'D onto IAG contracts thus saving a great deal of cash.

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.

[NEWYEAR]

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:

[pwalhx]

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.

[davidjohnson6]

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 ?

[HZ123]

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.

[jabird]

There's another compelling reason for NOT merging airlines from different countries.

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?

[Aksai Oiler]

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

[Tableview]

Aero Mierda de España.

[ConstantFlyer]

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