British Airways boss Willie Walsh has denied that the airlines is ready to surrender its runway slots at Heathrow airport in order to seal its proposed alliance with American Airlines.

The proposed merger of British Airways and American Airlines would combine transatlantic operations as joint venture and would capture the lion’s share of the inter-continental flights. However the alliance will have to first meet the approval of competition regulators who are expected to demand that the two airlines give up as many as ten pairs of runway slots a day.

However Walsh told The Sunday Times, London that he has no intentions of surrendering the highly-prized runway slots at the Heathrow airport. Across the Atlantic, Walsh’s defiance was backed by the American chief executive Gerard Arpey who claimed that there was no rational basis of such a surrender.

The proposed alliance of American Airlines and British Airways is expected to add to the latter’s bottom line by 2 million sterling pounds within three years. This is a significant amount considering that BA has been struggling with high fuel costs and declining demand and is just on its way to break even this year.