British Airways to axe half of senior IT managers

British Airways is to cut half of its senior IT management and a third of its middle IT management as part of continued pressure to reduce costs by new CEO Willie Walsh.

The management cuts will impact all departments across BA over the next two years, with 150 managers leaving the resurgent airline this month alone.

BA posted annual profits of £705m this week - up 25 per cent from last year.

But despite the management cuts staffing at BA's information management department will remain static at roughly 1,900 people due to extra recruitment

BA CIO Paul Coby told silicon.com that he is also aiming to increase productivity by 35 per cent by 2008, despite IT investment being held at £90m per year.

He said: "It's about getting really smart on our processes and measuring how we do things. We are simplifying how we approve projects and there is a greater focus on how we build things. It's a way of ensuring clarity of design, preventing late changes and scope creep. It's not rocket science."

Technology was credited for being at the heart of a major turnaround in BA's short-haul business, which has gone from running at a £310m loss in 1999 to a £7m profit for the financial year ended 31 March 2006.

In order to compete with the low cost, no-frills carriers, BA overhauled its online presence at BA.com, introduced e-ticketing and self-service check-in kiosks and is rolling out print-your-own boarding passes online.

One in three UK ticket sales and one in four global sales is now done online at BA.com and the target is for 50 per cent of all global sales and 50 per cent of all servicing - such as changing seats and excess baggage requests - to be done online by 2008.

As part of this push BA will be recruiting some staff in London and at its Newcastle 'centre of excellence' in June. Key skills the airline is looking for are web build and design, business analysis and project leaders.

BA's move to Heathrow's new Terminal 5 is also still firmly on track and Coby said the airline has just sent the first email from the primary computer room there to demonstrate that all the fibre connects up.