British Airways-owner IAG swings axe at Iberia IAG, which was created through the 2011 merger of British Airways and Iberia, said on Tuesday that it had started a formal redundancy process that will affect 3,807 jobs at the airline - almost a fifth of its total workforce. Mr Walsh had given unions a deadline of January 31 to reach an agreement but pressed ahead with swingeing cuts after the two sides failed to reach agreement by that date. The 3,807 job losses will come at a difficult time for the Spanish economy, which hit a record high of 26.2pc at the end of January. IAG said the job cuts were part of "Iberia's transformation plan to introduce permanent structural changes across the airline to stem its losses enabling it to grow profitably in the future." Iberia made a €262m operating loss in the nine months to September 30 compared to a €286m profit at its sister carrier British Airways during the same period. IAG reports full-year figures on February 28.