5 BWIA managers gone By Curtis Rampersad T'dad Express National airline BWIA West Indies Airways has slashed five managerial jobs as the financially troubled carrier scrambles to trim operating costs so it can have a chance of qualifying for financial aid from the government. Five managerial positions have been separated in little more than a week, with the airline attempting to remove redundant jobs which have for years been eating up tens of thousands of dollars in monthly salaries. Compensation packages have been offered to them. One of the five negotiated an early retirement package with the airline. The job losses occurred at both BWIA's Sunjet House, Port of Spain and Piarco offices and covered areas from hub and spoke, information technology and other departments. BWIA's director of Corporate Communications, Clint Williams, confirmed the managers' separations in an interview with Express Business. A senior manager in a different department also opted for two years no-pay leave, bringing the total to six. Williams said the managerial manoeuvrings were in keeping with BWIA's current restructuring exercise and its "drive toward efficient operations". The airline took a decision not to fill the now-vacant positions, he added. BWIA has been struggling through a tough fiscal year. The airline was already still trying to get its act together when it got hit with the double whammy of the aftermath of September 11. Its problems then deepened with new charter flight competition, slower customer bookings during the last financial quarter and flight scheduling snags with pilots and flight attendants. For the period July 1 to September 30, the airline made just US$521,000 compared to US$5.8 million during the similar quarter in 2001. Now the airline finds itself in a cycle where revenues cannot keep up with costs. BWIA has said it needs roughly US$13 million in financing to survive and keep creditors at bay. Although bookings to London, New York and Toronto have improved over the past couple of weeks, BWIA still needs to show it can save US$1.4 million a month to qualify for financial aid from the government. So far, it is still behind and airline experts predict more trimming to come. BWIA's Lawrence Duprey-led Board of Directors has already met to examine aspects of a draft plan which will ensure the airline cuts costs. "The next step will be for BWIA to continue to evaluate its operations and look for areas where it can significantly lower costs without impacting on its service to customers and its safety record," Williams said over the weekend. One of the worrying issues for both management and employees is labour concession reductions. BWIA's draft plan, which will eventually be presented to the government, includes reductions in monthly concession payments by US$300,000. Airline management has put forward its recommendations for concessions to its employees unions. But Williams admits that BWIA's executive is "concerned that at this late stage in the exercise and at this point there has not been confirmation of the labour concessions from the groups". Each group received a Memorandum of Understanding over the weeks that the restructuring exercise has been going on. "None of them has returned it yet," Williams said. Management continues to look for ways to save the required US$1.4 million a month. Williams saw parallels for BWIA in the latest developments at United Airlines, which did not get the labour concessions and was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy after being refused a cash injection by a special panel. Williams could not say if the airline would consider job cuts down the corporate ladder but pointed out that the recent high-powered job losses demonstrated management's position that no part of the airline was exempt from change. 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 *********************************************************