David Robertson | October 10, 2008 THE merger of British Airways and Iberia will be delayed as the British airline's managers struggle to cope with a collapse in passenger numbers. BA chief executive Willie Walsh said the deal with the Spanish flag carrier would take longer than expected because of the economic slowdown in the US and Britain. BA and Iberia announced their plan to merge in August in a deal that would create Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers and its third-largest by value. Mr Walsh said then that the deal was a response to the crisis of high fuel prices and falling demand that had gripped the airline industry; now BA says the crisis will delay its merger, probably until the middle of next year. In a Spanish interview, Mr Walsh said: "I can say that the...
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