IAG’s First Day of Trading Amidst Strike Fears

Shares in the newly merged British Airways and Iberia begin trading today as International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) makes its debut at the stock market. With this, BA ended almost a quarter of century of trading on the stock exchange as from today it will be listed under the name of the International Airlines Group.

BA and Spain’s Iberia are set to gain big time as the merger makes them the second largest airline by value after Lufthansa. IAG maintains a network of more than 400 aircrafts connecting more than 200 worldwide destinations. The airline also expects to handle passenger travel traffic of nearly 60 million people every year. BA and Iberia are fitting for each other also in terms of long-haul flights as British Airways is a big name in North Atlantic and Iberia is the one of the preferred airlines for flights between Europe and South America.

Strike Looms over IAG
However, everything does not seem to be rosy for the newly formed IAG as BA’s cabin crew voted in favour of another strike on Friday in the continuation of the confrontation between the staff and airline. Holiday makers who were lucky enough to grab cheap tickets on flights will pray hard as the strike seems imminent. And pray they should – with long weekends of Easter; cheap tickets on different flights will be anything but easily available. British Airways is however confident of smooth operations from different airports even in the state of a strike and insists ticket holders will not be hassled.