British Airways is to cut 1,000 jobs during the next two years in a major restructuring of its operations out of Gatwick.

The airline said it planned to significantly reduce long-haul flights out of London's second airport, reducing the number of destinations served from 43 to around 25.

The short-haul business will be refocused to concentrate on serving London and the South East, with less emphasis on providing services that feed into long-haul flights.

Rod Eddington, BA chief executive, said: "Gatwick is a key airport in our home market, and our activities there must operate on a sound financial footing.

"Despite the very best efforts of our team there, this has not previously been possible to achieve.

"The steps we are announcing today should improve our group profitability and ensure British Airways has a long-term viable future as Gatwick's leading airline."

Mr Eddington said 800 jobs were being created at Heathrow Airport, leaving the net loss of jobs at 1,000. He said the changes were "critical" to building a viable base at Gatwick.

Among the jobs to go at Gatwick will be cabin crew, engineers, some cockpit crew and a few cargo workers.

Union leaders expressed disappointment at the scale of the job losses but said they were relieved that redundancies would be voluntary.

Roger Maskell, national officer of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, said: "We regret any job losses, but it is important to see the wider picture.

"We have managed to secure very good redundancy terms and there will be no compulsory job losses."

Christopher Darke, general secretary of pilots' union Balpa said: "The figures show a planned reduction of about seven per cent in pilot numbers over three years.

"While we welcome BA's long-term commitment to Gatwick, the announcement today means that there are some very difficult negotiations that now need to take place over the next few months."

Six long-haul destinations out of Gatwick "with no prospect of achieving suitable levels of profitability" will be axed altogether, BA said.

About ten where there is a prospect of profitability will transfer to Heathrow.

Within Gatwick itself, operations will be consolidated at the North Terminal, with the CityFlyer Express service moving from the South Terminal from spring 2002, subject to agreement from Gatwick Airport.

Freight and mail activities will be consolidated in BA's Gatwick Cargocentre.

Mr Eddington said the airline had no plans to withdraw or reduce services to any regional destinations currently served from Gatwick.

There was hope today for those workers who will lose their jobs.

Crawley has an unemployment rate of about one per cent and in some areas there is a worker shortage.

Andrew Bauer of Crawley Chamber of Commerce said: "I think BA's loss could be Crawley's gain in that there are an awful lot of jobs that need filling. If people have got the right skills I wouldn't see them being out of work for long at all.

"Crawley at the moment is a very hot economy. I could see this as an opportunity to stop it over-heating."