After losing £401m, BA announces 1,700 job cuts

More bad news for the company....

• BA urged to 'step back from brink' (The Telegraph)

BA posts first quarter pre-tax loss of £148m

Trading conditions 'very challenging' with 'no visible signs of improvement'

• BA posts £148m loss and remains gloomy on industry prospects (The Guardian)

The Times describes the loss as 'the worst result since privatisation'

BA to scrap free meals on short flights

In a desperate bid to save around £22 million a year The Independent reports that BA is to scrap 'free meals' on its short haul flights.

BAA loses over £500m, as passenger numbers fall by 4.4 million

The guardian article says it all...

British Airways asks staff to work without pay for a month

It's with mixed feelings I notice that BA has asked its employees to work without pay for a month; Schadenfreude, in that this organisation has put its own greed before our quality of life, contrasted with sadness, because we are witnessing yet another British company "fighting for its own survival".

• British Airways asks staff to work for nothing (Reuters)

BA management is commendably trying everything to avoid job losses, however it's clear that redundancies are the logical next step. Asking employees to "play their part" like this, without giving any extra job security seems rather one-sided.

At the end of the day, management will decide who gets made redundant and you can be fairly sure that Chief Executive Willie Walsh won't be laying himself off in a hurry, even if he is selflessly forgoing a month's salary from his annual £735,000 paycheck.

Time for BA employees to jump the sinking ship (err, plane)?

Heathrow fined £10,000 after worker falls off terminal roof

In March 2007 a contractor fell from one of the buildings at Heathrow, seriously injuring his leg. There was no edge protection and local lighting was found not to be working.

Due to the accident, the worker suffered life changing injuries and is now unable to do the work that he used to do.

Let's hope safety policies are a little more stringent when it comes to the planes....

Top executives lead revolt on Heathrow third runway

I'm sure Future Heathrow would like to believe that if you're against the Third Runway, you're just an irrational tree hugger or an ignorant Luddite, completely blind to the economic environment and business demands of the next 30 years or so.

Or maybe you're one of those people, happy to sit back and watch the UK slide down the international competitiveness league (although the finance sectors and woeful government have already done a pretty good job at facilitating this). To this end, they have published a list of 100 leading businesses and organisations which say "yes" to a third runway. You can find out who they are here (1.5MB PDF) - encouraging to see that Future Heathrow is included there.

Now apparently, not all companies are as short-sighted as these organisations and a number of high profile chief execs have spoken out about the proposed development:

• Justin King of J Sainsbury
• Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse
• Ian Cheshire of Kingfisher
• Sir Roy Gardner, chairman of Compass

It's encouraging to see rationality coming from our business leaders. Read the full article here:

• Top executives lead revolt on Heathrow third runway (The Times)

Geoff Hoon's property empire built on taxpayers' money

In their ongoing exposure of politician's expenses, The Telegraph reports that Geoff Hoon managed to build himself a nice little property empire worth £1.7 million, after claiming taxpayer-funded expenses for at least two properties.....

British Airways records worst ever loss

BA's pre-tax losses were £401m for the year to 31 March, nearly double some analysts' estimate. Combine this with BAA's recent loss of £316.2m and you have two companies which look in a desperately sorry state.

I wonder how they can afford to go ahead with their destructive plans? Unless of course, the expectation is for the taxpayer to fund them? I'm sure that's in there somewhere...

Can you trust this man?

Apparently, he lived in an MoD flat while letting out London property and claiming expenses for his constituency house when he was defence secretary...

• Geoff Hoon's home expenses come under spotlight (The Guardian)