British Airways mulls HQ sale amid telecommuting boom

BRITISH Airways (BA) is mulling the sale of its headquarters near Heathrow Airport to raise funds, as many employees embrace telecommuting during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The global pandemic has shown us that many of our colleagues enjoy working remotely and want to continue, and this has accelerated our approach to offering more agile and flexible ways of working,” BA said in a statement emailed to AFP on March 19.

“Our aim is to find a hybrid working model that suits our business, blending the best of office and remote working for our people.

“We’ve also re-structured our business to emerge from the crisis and are considering whether we still have the need for such a large headquarters building.”

The company’s sprawling Waterside office complex employs around 2,000 people and is situated on the outskirts of Heathrow in Harmondsworth, west of the British capital.

The Financial Times reported that BA has already hired property consultants to evaluate a sale, citing an internal staff email.

The group is in the early stages of reviewing different options and no final decisions have yet been made, however.

IAG, the British carrier’s parent company, has axed 10,000 jobs at BA, or one quarter of its workforce, as it responds to nosediving demand in the global health emergency.

March 19’s news comes after IAG last month posted a record annual net loss of €6.9 billion ($8.4 billion) as Covid-19 paralysed air travel.

IAG, which also owns Spanish airline Iberia and Ireland’s Aer Lingus, revealed that revenues dived by 70 per cent to €7.8 billion in 2020 as government travel restrictions slashed passenger numbers.