Iberia have a good long haul product (better seats than TAM, everything else equal) and operate out of a first class hub airport. Their niche (South America) is booming. They should make money.

If you look along the ramp the fleet looks coherent - Airbus on every tail. I have not personally experienced poor customer service from Iberia, though their web services are a disaster.

I guess they need to scale back their short haul operations to a feeder operation (ideally out of a single terminal) and let other short haul go to lower cost competitors.

CLDRVR, you wrote:

"Iberia operating loss 2011 273Mn Euro

BA operating profit 2011 518Mn GBP


The numbers speak for themselves.


IAG - International Airlines Group - Annual Reports"

How can it be, that according to IB´s economical activity results, up until 2011, IB had been making money for 13 years in a row?

BA had been losing money due to injections into a 3.8 BILLION pounds deficit, leaving results for 2009, 2010 deep in the red (-314, and -397 respectively)....

This information can be found in both IB and BA pages.

All of a sudden, IB and BA merge in 2011, and surprise surprise, IB is neck deep in the mud, and BA is making historical profits.... How on earth can this be explained?

As you rightfully wrote, number speak for themselves. Obviously, IAG has made number "magic" and fiddled with the results.... This is quite common in large "merged" companies, where bad numbers are necessary in order to justify certain un-heartful and absolutely medieval moves.

Don´t you dare attempt to justify what has happened, you know fully well that IAG, through its members in the board of directors, mainly British let it be said.. together with a ruthless and avaricious Spanish sell out, are killing IB, and turning Spain into BA´s low cost playground.

Someone wrote that IB will survive due to its long haul..... Really??

Can that person explain why, money making routes such as Madrid - Johannesburg, are know flown by BA from LHW????? WTF!!!! Fly up to LHW to go back down south??? Really??? How does this benefit... I can only think that it is BA that needs to fill its airplanes. Other profitable routes like MAD - MEX have also been "given" to BA... Why why why? Can´t you see that this does not make sense?

If IB is (falsely) not doing so well, why are they taking the routes that let it stand up?

So please, maybe its time that some of you get your facts up to date, and not rely solely on numbers given by IAG, who is more than obviously doing money engineering.

No, Iberia had cash reserves of €4 billion generated through investment (for future airframe investment I believe) not through profit. The investment was to entice partnerships and hopefully enable route generation to herald a return to profit.

BA has never been allowed to utilise any cash reserves from IB. That was a cornerstone of the IAG agreement that the cash reserves would never be used to plug the BA defecit. Each airline would have to sink or swim based upon its own merits. The cash reaserves are held by the group, the pensions deficit is being handled internally by BA through increased personal contribution, closing of the final salary pension scheme and an agreement to reduce overall contribution and a continued investment from BA to close the defecit. All of which are available to see in the annual figures.

Iberia is deep in the mire and was deep in the mire. There has never been any attempt at modernisation of working practices, no attempt at re-organising management structures and even less attempt at rationalising employee productivity.

This is NOT about BA/IB, the entire thing is being driven by the IB board recognising that the entire business is out of date and needs restructuring. There will be no more 'golden' investment into IB until it is streamlined and fit for purpose.

It doesn't matter how many figures you pump out IB is completely untenable in its current form. It has never made a profit it has only ever been utilised as a national carrier investment opportunity as many investors, rightly, believed that the Spanish Government wouldn't let it fail.

albertofdz - Iberia had not been making money 13 years in a row up to 2011. You know that. BA is now profitable in part because it has been through the pain of a restructuring three years ago and premium traffic has recovered after it collapsed post Lehman Brothers.

Sticking your head in the sand and dreaming up conspiracy theories will get you nowhere with IAG management. There's plenty of evidence they will work with unions who'll work with them and they will sideline those who won't.

It's tough medicine. But BA has already been through it and is now thriving.

BA has said its recruiting (Future Pilot Program etc) yet Iberia is sacking people. Would options for a transfer from one part of IAG to another not be possible? In the UK under TUPE, IAG would be expected to offer the pilots / other staff equivalent roles if they are available. Is this going to happen here? Could this be trouble for those people being recruited at the moment?

AFAIK there is no 'pan-european' version of TUPE. The companies are, for all intents and purposes, still seperate companies under individual AOC's.

You cannot fly a Spanish registered aircraft unless you have a Spanish passport. How would transferring Iberia pilots to BA (no restriction on nationality) be considered fair is the reverse is impossible.

Spanish protectionism at its best, part of the root cause (as well as ostrich impressions) of their current problems.

For example, Iberia long haul pilots require a brand new set of jeppensen plates with the route highlighted on them at the start of each briefing. BA pilots print their own briefing material and the plates are stored on the a/c and are reused until they are out of date.

How many other ridiculous costly working practices do Iberia have.

BA pilots voted to accept a pay cut and increased productivity at the start of the financial crisis. Iberia?

I suspect most Iberia pilots would be shocked at how hard BA pilots work. I suspect the comparison could be made for most departments.

Stop looking over the fence, blaming others and FIX YOUR OWN PROBLEMS, or you could end up like Alitalia.

alberto

Really? FWIW BA have operated LHR-MEX ( it's a longstanding 747 route) well before IAG came on the scene and also , as far as I know :ok: , BA do not operate MAD-MEX.

I rather suspect you are

For those who still argue that IB has not been profitable for the past 13 years, please feel free to visit IB webpage and study the economical results.

The details are public and available, however you will need to be able to reed in spanish.

I can fully understand that many will not want to accept that BA has, through IAG, been made profitable by sacrificing IB.

Nobody has bothered to explain why profitable IB routes have been given to BA.

Really and truthfully, apart from the obvious evidence that IB has been used to rescue BA, I don´t trust IAG one bit, and you are free to defend BA within this corporation, but the truth is there, if you ignore it, that is your choice, I for one think that this is a disgrace.

Wiggy, you are defending my point!

Exactly write, IB stops operating MAD-MEX, a route that is profitable.

If you wish to fly from MAD-MEX, you can know do it by flying MAD-LHW-MEX. Well considering, the original MAD-MEX was profitable, this adjustment makes a whole lot of sense doesn´t it?

Its amazing how you lot stick together, even if you are mistaken. Sometimes I wish in Spain we were the same...

Alberto,

BA has been operating MAD-LHR-MEX for over 15 years. IAG as changed nothing.

Stop dreaming up conspiracies.

Alberto, what are you talking about? I just tried booking MAD-MEX and I see direct flights between those cities on Iberia. IB6400 and IB6401

BA was always far more profitable than IB? What is your point?

All of the BMI Baby (a company wholly owned by IAG) pilots got laid off, so the answer appears to be a very definite no.

Just ask the TCX guys what spanish management can do to a company.

Good luck to all involved.

My apologies, you appear to be correct, IB still operates MAD - MEX.

If you are interested, give this a reed. Again, you will need to understand spanish:

http://requiemporiberia.********.com.es/

Finally, I agree with the last post, it is amazing what can happen to any company under spanish command! (Specially if merged with pirates).

the xxxx stand for blog spot, written together obviously..

Lufthansa has created the new model. Iberia will fly A340s on longhaul with its international brand recognition and Vueling will take over the majority of short haul as a very low-cost carrier.

Very sad for the Iberia crew who will be impacted. :ugh: Although very poor compensation, I do hope the Iberia crew get slots at Veuling as it expands if those pilots wish to continue to live/fly in Spain and Europe. Although I doubt many Iberia pilots would take that option. Perhaps Emirates will get more applications from Spain as a result. Sounded like Qatar opened its hiring to Spanair pilots but the integration did not work so well for many applicants - let us hope Iberia crews who do wish to go East can speak better English..........

Good luck to all involved!

There appears to be no reference to financial, economical or annual accounts in the Iberia website and neither was there any mention of them in the Site Map of the website.

Please respond with the correct URL, so that this information can be viewed.
Thank you.

Operating profit/loss for the last 5 years according to Iberia's financial statements:
IBERIA
2008 - 5 million
2009 - (475 million)
2010 - (3 million)
2011 - (475 million)

BA
2008 - 878 m
2009 - (220 m)
2010 - 197 m
2011 - 518 m

Adjusted Profit/loss after tax (everything accounted for) for last 5 years
Iberia
2008 - 32 m
2009 - (273) m
2010 - 89 m
2011 - (273) m

BA
2008 - 726 m
2009 - (358) m
2010 - (10) m
2011 - 726 m

These are the figures I have found online - I guess Iberia must've been boosting BAs profits in 2008 and 2011!

Please show us your figures to support your claim that Iberia has been profitable for the past 13 years - I'm betting you can't though because you're talking cr@p!