BA's chiefexecutive Willie Walsh has insisted that passengers had not been overcharged because fuel surcharges were "a legitimate way of recovering costs".
"I made it very clear that the one piece of hand luggage restriction which applies to customers departing the UK and transferring through the UK has no security justification, " said BA's chiefexecutive Willie Walsh.
"This is an exciting new chapter in our history as, for the first time, we will be flying directly between continental Europe and the US, " British Airways' chiefexecutive Willie Walsh said in a statement on the BA.com Web site.
David Soskin, chiefexecutive of cheapflights.com, which directs many of its visitors to the BA Web site, says Walsh's restructuring had been inevitable and more could be expected.