LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - British Airways is planning a major overhaul of its cabin crew that will "significantly reduce" their numbers, an internal memo circulated on Wednesday showed, after parent IAG (L:ICAG) moved to cut as many as 12,000 of the airline's 42,000 staff.
Senior long-haul flight attendants stand to lose out as the carrier scraps its three existing cabin-crew organisations and reassigns a smaller number of staff to a single lower-cost entity, under plans outlined in the memo seen by Reuters.
"Our proposals aim to save as many jobs as possible and secure a sustainable future," the note from an in-flight customer experience executive that was later circulated among representatives of BA's 16,500 cabin crew said.
A BA spokeswoman declined to comment on the memo. Two union sources told Reuters they were aware of its content.
The plans would abolish the "worldwide fleet" of mainly senior crew that fly long-haul, as well as the medium-haul "Euro fleet" and "mixed fleet" categories, it states.
BA has opened formal union consultations on a proposal to "restructure and significantly reduce the size of our cabin crew team in line with our anticipated operational requirement," the memo says.
Those staying on would be grouped into a "single new cabin crew team" based at London Heathrow, with "all crew flying both short- and long-haul", it adds.