British Airways (BA) today showed the impact of the September 11th terrorist attacks by unveiling pre-tax losses for the third quarter of £160 million sterling.
However, the figures from BA were better than expected, with operating losses for the period coming in at £187 million against the £225 million that many City experts had been predicting.
Chief executive Mr Rod Eddington said: "We have made real progress in managing our costs but British Airways still faces a number of considerable challenges some of which were apparent before the terrorist attacks on the USA".
Mr Eddington later told BBC Radio 4's Todayprogramme: "Clearly we've got some work to do, and there's a major piece of work on future size and shape which is on track and will be announced later this month, so we'll be able to go into the detail of that then".
Asked whether that would mean a "slimmer" shape, Mr Eddington said: "Yes - we've got to take costs out of our business".
Mr Eddington said he did not want to talk about whether that would mean job cuts, which some reports claimed could be up to 10,000. But he said: "We are going to have to take some more jobs [on top of 7,000 already announced] out of our business, that's right".
BA's shares were up 1 per cent to 215p - in the opening minutes of trading on the London market.
PA