British Airways' latest traffic and capacity figures reveal just how little difference the airline's much-ridiculed effort to persuade staff to work for nothing will make. That goes for the staff as much as for the airline itself.
The voluntary scheme will save the group a mere £10m - and it's a temporary rather than a permanent saving. BA can only make a difference to its continuing costs by imposing more radical measures such as those announced yesterday, which tailor its financial profile to the ever more challenging economic conditions. BA now has to slash capacity by an extra percentage point in each of the summer and winter seasons and ground three more Boeing 757s and three more 747s.
