'Fortune': British Airways Cuts 1,000 Jobs, Reduces Operations at Gatwick
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the world's biggest airline is making steps to cut losses.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: British Airways cutting 1000 jobs as a major revamp -- as part of a major revamp of its operations. Janet Guyon has more now from a London. And Janet, is this going to help the airline get into the black?</s>JANET GUYON, LONDON BUREAU CHIEF, "FORTUNE": Well, we certainly hope so, or certainly BA hopes so. I think Rod Eddington said this morning it would be a couple of years before these changes brought the airline into the black, particularly at Gatwick. But what they're doing today makes a lot of sense, there transferring a lot of long-haul flight destinations from Gatwick to Heathrow, and making Gatwick basically a place where if you're only going a short distance, into Europe for example, you go to Gatwick. If you're going on a long trip, you go to Heathrow. This makes a lot of sense. It means that, if you've missed one flight at Heathrow, you don't have to go over to Gatwick to get the next flight, which is quite a long journey, it's at least about the equivalent distance between New York's LaGuardia and Newark airport in New York. So it's really a way to rationalize their flight structure.</s>MARCHINI: Does the increased emphasis on Gatwick for long-haul flights, make it even less of a prospect that American Airlines will get more landing slots at Gatwick soon?</s>GUYON: I'm not sure that this really affects that. I mean, with Gatwick being an area for short-haul flights and Heathrow being a place for long-haul flights, I'm not really sure this will have a great deal of fact on that relationship with American Airlines. You know, a lot of British Airways' problems has been deregulation and competition from the airlines on the continent. And if they go back into negotiations with the government on their American Airlines alliance, and emphasize that they're really -- that Heathrow is just not the monopoly on long-haul traffic as it once was, you know, they may have better prospects of getting that American Airlines alliance strengthened. So I'm not sure that these moves necessarily affect that, but it does reflect the overall level of increased competition in Europe.</s>MARCHINI: All right, Janet Guyon, "Fortune" magazine, thank you.