London, June 14 (RHC)-- UK legislators labelled British Airways a "national disgrace" for its treatment of employees, adding to pressure on the airline as it juggles job cuts and new quarantine rules.

Britain's Transport Select Committee said that BA and its parent company IAG were trying to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis to cut 12,000 jobs and downgrade the terms and conditions of other employees.

"It is unacceptable that a company would seek to drive this level of change under the cover of a pandemic," Conservative legislator Huw Merriman, who chairs the committee, said in a report published on Saturday.

In response, a spokeswoman for the airline said: "We will do everything in our power to ensure that British Airways can survive and sustain the maximum number of jobs consistent with the new reality of a changed airline industry in a severely weakened global economy."