London: British Airways revealed a quadrupling of net losses in its first half yesterday, and axed an extra 1,200 jobs in an “essential” cost-reduction programme. BA posted a loss after tax of £217m (¤242m, $361m) during the six months to September 30 compared with a loss of 49 million pounds during the equivalent period in 2008.

“Aviation remains in recession,” BA chief executive Willie Walsh said in comments accompanying news of the company’s deep loss.

“With BA revenue likely to be one billion pounds lower this year, we can’t stand still and further cost reduction is essential,” he warned. British Airways said it would cut an extra 1,200 jobs, taking the total planned reduction to 4,900 by 2010.

Most of the new losses would be outside Britain and follows a high response from staff agreeing to work part-time or take voluntary redundancy to help secure the airline’s future.

Reacting to news of fresh cost-cutting measures, BA’s share price rallied 6.28 percent to 198 pence on London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index, which was up 0.23 percent to 5,137.32 points in midday trade.

BA also announced yesterday that group sales dropped nearly 14 percent to £4.1bn in the first half.

Some commercial airlines across the world are suffering badly from the massive global economic slump that has slashed demand for air travel and sparked a major cash squeeze for the sector.

However, on Monday, Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said its net profit had shot up 80 percent to ¤387m ($570.8m) in April-September compared with the figure for the same period 12 months earlier.

On Thursday, Italian airline Alitalia reported its first operating profit since its takeover by an alliance of Italian business interests last January.

Meanwhile, BA, in a bid to improve its fortunes and claw back ground lost to British rival Virgin, launched an all-business class service from London to New York late in September.

Previous attempts at all-business class services from airlines such as Maxjet and Silverjet failed in the run-up to the worst downturn since the 1930s. Earlier this year, British Airways decided to scrap all free meals apart from breakfast on its short-haul flights in an attempt to reduce overheads.

BA suffered an annual loss of £375m in its 2008-09 financial year, which it blamed on high fuel costs.