Iberia Airlines, Spanish airline of the International Airlines Group, is in real trouble.  Spain’s economy is horrific and competition from low cost carriers is killing them.  Sounds like British Airways, right?

IAG CEO Willie Walsh says that there will be a massive restructuring of the airline with as many as 4500 people made redundant.

Mind you, he’s probably dead right about what needs to happen.  I also think he’s going to be suffer the rage of Spanish unions and that will be an experience that makes his tangle with British Airways flight attendants seem like a summer romance.

Iberia’s problems, which come from having lived as a government sanctioned flag carrier for years (this is getting to be too familiar), have to do with a bloated staff, an unproductive set of agreements with flight crew and a Spanish economy that is miserable.

None of this was really unknown when Iberia and British Airways combined.  So why did they do it?  Pressure from other European airline mergers.  British Airways felt it needed a merger or risk being diminished by other European airlines.

Now they’ve got their merger and one side of the partnership is a pair of rubber boots filled with cement.   If Willie Walsh is able to restructure Iberia and bring them back into profitability, I will nominate him for Amazing Airline CEO of the Decade.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax