BWIA to cut more jobs By Orion Ganase T'dad Express National airline BWIA will continue to look at cutting more jobs to reduce operating costs. Chief executive officer Conrad Aleong admitted yesterday that: "When you are trying to save money, you've got to find the solutions. And we are finding some areas where we can save cash, if we can do without those particular positions. So we are doing what we can, as we find positions we will continue to do so." His announcement followed the recent separation of several managers at the cash strapped airline. Aleong estimated that about eight managers had been replaced. BWIA has to save US$1.4 million a month to qualify for financial assistance from the Government. The airline has not received all the labour concessions it wanted. Speaking at the unveiling of the airline's new Boeing 737-800 aircraft, Aleong said management tried to get voluntary employee savings but was now "forced to find solutions". "We've tried to make it voluntary and we're still working hard on making it voluntary," he said. He pointed to the example of United Airlines, whose employees failed to meet savings targets set by the CEO. "(United Airlines) tried for months and months just to end up in Chapter 11 (bankruptcy protection) just because the employees did not give enough," he said. Jagroop Jagdeo, of CATTU, one of the airline's unions, said employee morale was low because they had been hearing of job cuts for a long time. The addition of the new 737-800 will complete the narrow body fleet for BWIA and is the latest move in the company's fleet simplification drive. "This is where we set out to fix the airline after 9/11," said Aleong. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ The Trinbago Site of the Week: (TnT News) http://www.tntmirror.com/ (TnT News) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************