Iberia to Lose 4500 jobs - 25 airframes
 

The news has just been announced on the Beeb; 4500 jobs along with 25 airframes. IAG has set a deadline of the end of january for negotiations (?) with unions. Just what Spain needs.

What Iberia needs is to get rid of IAG, since Brits arrived to management the company is a disaster, BA needs Madrid for it´s long haul routes and slots and politics in Spain, together with their colleagues, will do whatever is needed to get the money and run.

The problem in Spain is not the people, hard workers and very good professionals, the problem are the politics.

Iberia........ Twenty years behind the market
 

Over twenty years ago under Lord King BA went through this sort of cost cutting, at the time it hurt but BA has emerged as a competitive airline.

Iberia needs the same sort of radical changes to survive I feel for the people who will suffer the job losses especially as Spain is going through very hard times but this reorganization should have started years ago, if it had then the jobs could have been lost by retirements and a recruting freeze.

As usual poor management hurts those at the bottom the most.

Funniest thing I've ever read!

Iberia has NEVER made an operating profit. They have always been underpinned by the Government either local or from central. Their working practices are antiquated, their fleets are a mix of several different aircraft types and manufacturers making an engineering nightmare and their Unions are set in the stone age.

The old Iberia management don't want to sort things out 'in house'. Confronted with a problem their 'soloution' is to sell, outsource and lease back as they believe that will make all their problems go away.

The grass roots Spanish worker may well be hard working but they don't want to be as productive as they could be.

As painful as it will be Iberia itself, and those remaining (no-one knows the front line/back office split yet) will be a better, hopefully profitable, airline.

Without radical restructuring Iberia would go to the wall in pretty short order. Don't believe me then look at the restructuring that AF is having to undergo at the moment.

Irrespective of who pushes the changes through the changes themselves were inevitable.

Not nowadays, it would seem. From elsewhere I glean the fleet to be:

A319 19
A320 25
A321 19
A340-300 16
A340-600 17

of which 20 shorthaul and 5 longhaul airframes to be cut from the fleet.

So IAG are going to chop 20 shorthaul airframes (and associated crew) - just as they bid to buy the rest of Vueling. So the Iberia unions made things "difficult" and the company just simply goes for the nuclear option.

Modern MBA management technique. Two birds with one stone. Reduce costs significantly and "stick it" to the union in one swoop.They're really playing hardball - Willie probably doesn't want another long drawn out saga like the BA cabin crew/UNTIE fiasco.

Have to agree with Wirbelsturms comments re Iberia management.

Top Bunk,

True, alot of the MD-80's and regional jets were farmed out a fair few years back.

Perhaps engineering might be a bit easier to tame.
:E

BA (not IAG) 9 Month operating profit: £232m
Iberia 9 Month operating loss: £262m

As much as it pains me for those losing jobs at Iberia I don't see how they could have continued as they were.

The entire restructuring plan and the costs involved with implementation are coming from within Iberia itself. It would seem this is the completion of a two year radical mamangement rethink of the business direction.

As I said before, the outcome was fairly inevitable.

What we need is an actual Iberia Pilot to come here and confirm whether these types are flown as individual fleets (no CCQ) or in the more usual way with single aisle types together and longhaul together.

Well, those are not the numbers I have. In the last 12 years before merging with BA Iberia had a profit of 4.000 million €. After the merging Iberia only get looses?

You guys out there don´t see the the story and it´s quite simple. This is game between 3 colleagues who want to make as much money as possible and have no idea of this business. Iberia is not BA, BA wants to be like Iberia.

So I´m Iberia, I open a low cost named ClickAir, but I sell it, then I open another low cost named Express, but now I want another low cost named vueling and I close my express which openned 1 year ago, in bewteen I buy and sale and I get the commssion because... I´m smart!!!!

Please, wake up. If I would be an Iberia worker I would go on strike for ever and go to hell with management.

IB needs to restructure to survive and with Vueling being brought in house I cannot see much future for its shorthaul operation.

@TRansilvania
 

I have sympathy to those whom may loose their jobs, however, one of the many problems with Iberia is Customer Service, I live in Spain and avoid Iberia at all costs (at least 60 sectors a year with OneWorld). I was even told by their VIP Customer Service department that there is no culture of customer service within Iberia. Please remember as a SLF we have a choice, and I will take my money elsewhere, even if it is BA or Vueling. My personal opinion is please let those wonderful staff you speak of whom should go on "strike", and maybe that will be the final nail in the coffin.

Vueling are to start LGW/BCN in direct competition with another IAG company BA which will (at long last) re-open the route in February.
Call me suspicious but I do not imagine this will be the sole route for Vueling from LGW for very long.

Some of the stuff one must read.....

I´m going to go ahead and strip this down in chronological order:

1: IB CEO Fernando Conte is against a mere with BA. BA is deep in the RED due to a fantastic pension fund. BA cannot continue to grow in LHW. IB is doing very well on its own because it has a very specific market in South America, son it does NOT need BA under any circumstances.

2: Board of directors sacks mr. Conte, and replaces him with mr. Rafael Sanchez Lozano, he in turn will turn IB upside down, if he must, in order to fill his bank account with dirty money that he will be paid in order to allow the merge.

3: IAG is born.

4: IBX is created because IB short-medium haul routes are bleeding..... BS! Union tries by all means to block IBX from emerging, 1: because it goes against IB's pilots collective bargain, and this under Spanish law is ILLEGAL. 2: because it will obviously cause redundancy in IB.

5: IB union offers a package to the board of directors. This package includes IB co-pilots upgrading in IBX under IBX salary and conditions, and then moving back into IB by strict order of seniority. Board declines this measure, whilst it wont cost them a penny more.... wtf????

6: IBX grows whilst IB short-medium haul shrinks.

7: BA takes over some of IB long haul (and very profitable by the way) routes.

8: IB plans to sack 4500.

This is yet again another DRAKE scenario to which we have grown very accustomed to in Spain.

Don´t get me wrong, it is not entirely BA to blame, in fact, once again, this is a greedy Spaniards fault, motivated by a thirsty Brit.... I´m sorry if anyone feels hurt by such a harsh truth... Trust me, its going to hurt 4500 unemployed families, more than it will do to your ego.

Remember, it was IB´s gold that was pirated by BA.

It was a greedy bas...... who sold out IB, and turned his crew, now as slaves, into the eye strapped, parrot carrying, pirate from BA.

And by the way, were is the union when its most needed? Are BA pilots happy with this measure? What do they have to say about such an exploit? Why on earth do BA pilots pay BALPA??? Since december 2011 nothing has been said...... It would be wise for a union to have a say in this atrocity, after all, it is in their interest to not allow such a thing to happen, some day, it could be 4500 jobs from BA..

About IB being antiquated.... lets be serious, all large flag airliners are, they have a heavy amount of inertia, BA included.

Personally, I feel hurt and appalled by such madness.

As a Spaniard I feel sold out by businessmen, and sick of being stigmatized mainly by northern Europeans (lazy Spaniards sitting on their back sides all day long, leaching on European funds.....yes, that is exactly what many think about us, why else include us in a herd of swine.... I mean PIGS?), in Spain there are thousands, if not millions of extremely well prepared professionals who are fleeing in order to obtain a job, for instance, Spanish nurses are VERY welcome in England, Germany France......

As a Spaniard I envy governments that would never allow such a raid, and even though we protest every week in the streets, change is taking an awful long time to occur, although the message appears to be reaching the top layers.

So please, before writing any gibberish about IB, please get your facts together, and maybe try to learn something about the new generations in Spain. Start worrying about this matter seriously... Maybe tomorrow AA could be doing the same to BA.... Who knows..

Nice flights

No-one likes to see people losing their jobs but claiming that Iberia's losses are a fiction and its employees are the victim of a vast conspiracy by the British against the Spanish will get you absolutely nowhere.

As some have learned from bitter experience, if IAG management is intent on pursuing change they will do it and those that won't engage with management will find themselves sidelined. Far better to accept change is happening and influence it as far as you can.

Anyone who has observed Iberia can see it needs structural reform to survive. BA has already been through this. It wasn't pretty but it's come out much stronger for it.

Iberia operating loss 2011 273Mn Euro

BA operating profit 2011 518Mn GBP


The numbers speak for themselves.


IAG - International Airlines Group - Annual Reports

IB is/was having trouble adapting to modern service styles and attitudes; something not uncommon in Spanish industry. If you've ever tried to change your internet provider in Spain you will know exactly what I mean. You, the customer, has to do all the running.

BA has made hundreds redundant or outsourced them at LGW and probably many more at outstations. It has dealt with a cabin crew strike recently.

IAG will have its work cut out getting IB into some sort of shape but will have learned an awful lot of lessons.

It will also have Vueling which can be expanded to provide much of IBs shorthaul work; which in fact it already does out of BCN where the sight of a mainline IB aircraft is becoming a rare event; a few regional jets hidden away at the end of a long walk down Terminal 1.

well said albertofdz.

@albertofdz

I know many Spanish people and I would never dare to call any of them lazy. They are among the hardest working people I know.
I agree with you that the conditions they work under and the system tends to fight them all the way.
A very small example:
The interior of a block of flats, the public ways on three floors, repainted to a very high standard in two working days by two men.
In the UK it would have taken two weeks!

Presumably, the Unions will feed back the key points from IAG's market presentations at today's IR presentations, and give you their opinion of the detailed business plan for Iberia going forwards...

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!