BA reveals plan to raise funds amid staff protest

Troubled airline British Airways (BA) said today it was exploring options to raise new funds, as its under-pressure board faced sharp opposition over controversial cost-cutting measures.

BA Chairman Martin Broughton, addressing the company's annual general meeting in London, said the airline was looking at issuing bonds as a way of increasing cash reserves.

Meanwhile Chief Executive Willie Walsh said the company's policy of slashing thousands of jobs and asking staff to take pay cuts and even work temporarily for free was "essential" for the airline's survival.

Outside the meeting, dozens of trade union officials and activists staged a protest and paraded two cages of lemmings to symbolise dissatisfaction at how the company was being led.

About a fifth of BA's 40,000-strong workforce, including pilots, have agreed to accept cuts in pay or to work for free to help the group save millions of pounds (euros, dollars).

However the GMB union, representing BA baggage handlers and check-in workers, said today that its members had opposed plans to make huge cost savings.

The world's leading commercial airlines are facing a major cash squeeze as the global economic slump crushes demand for air travel.

"The world's major airlines are now facing up to the need to add more liquidity to their balance sheets to give them sufficient lift to weather the current storm," Broughton told shareholders today.