London: British Airways (BA) on February 13 said that it was slashing 5,800 more jobs and axing 10 routes in a bid to reverse mounting losses in the wake of the September 11 terrorist hijackings.

BA said the new job cuts were on top of 7,200 redundancies announced in September, meaning that the company has now axed almost one quarter of the 57,000 staff employed just six months ago.

Like other major carriers, BA has suffered terribly from a steep drop in demand since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which also aggravated a broader economic downturn.

Transatlantic routes, the mainstay of BA's business, have severely hit, while low- cost airlines have moved to muscle in on its short-haul routes.

"It's a tough business and you only need to look at the performance of the full- service airlines around the world to realise that, we haven't been spared," said chief executive Rod Eddington.

"September 11 has radically changed the external environment for us, but some of the problems we're addressing today pre-date that," he told BBC radio.

Airlines have huge fixed costs and once revenues start falling, losses quickly mount.

Last week, BA revealed that its finances had nose-dived deep into the red, with a pretax loss of 160 million Pounds for the December quarter.

BA now hopes to cut costs by 650 million Pounds a year by March 2004, though it has not yet revealed which routes will be axed.

Alex Scott, an analyst at Seven Investment Management, said, "There are some good ideas in the strategy but the question is whether they can execute them.

Under the new changes, Gatwick Airport, South of London, will increasingly be the short-haul hub, with four long-haul flights transferred to Heathrow, an airport better suited for a hub-and-spoke operation, BA said.

BA said that it would scale back its fleet still further, so that by summer 2003 it will have 305 aircraft, from 354 last summer. But there was no mention of any plans to seek further merger or alliance partners after BA's hopes of forging an alliance with American Airlines were dashed last month by tough conditions laid down by regulators.