British Airways announced 7,000 job cuts today in the wake of terrorist attacks in the US.

The cutbacks include 400 pilots' jobs and 2,300 cabin crew posts with 20 aeroplanes grounded and flying reduced by ten per cent.

Around 3,000 jobs will go in marketing, management, administration and support departments, along with 850 in checkout and other ground customer services and 450 in engineering.

Chief Executive Rod Eddington said: "We face exceptional circumstances which have forced us to take very tough decisions.

"We have taken the necessary steps to curtail expenditure and sadly to cut our workforce."

BA said it would try to achieve the cuts by voluntary means and would be holding talks with union leaders today but could not rule out compulsory redundancies.

A BA official said the airline wanted to move "quickly and decisively".

BA is a major Sussex employer and the cuts could have a knock-on effect on firms supplying services and goods to the airline.

TGWU general secretary Bill Morris said: "We knew the news would be bad in the announcement. What we didn't expect was bad news of this magnitude.

"It will impact on manufacturing, tourism and of course the service sector.

"The state of the crisis in the civil aviation industry is bigger than foot-and-mouth."

Mid Sussex councillor for Copthorne and Worth, near Gatwick, Gordon Phillips said: "I think it is a sad state of affairs but things have to be done in order to keep the airlines going. I hope they get Government funding but I very much doubt it.

"It is symptomatic of what is happening and other industries are going to suffer as well. I suppose we have to take our share of the consequences.

"It is going to have a knock-on effect on employment in this area because you have got a lot of people in associated industries. It is going to hit us locally and I have sympathy with people who will lose their jobs."

West Sussex County Councillor David Dewdney, for the Pound Hill area of Crawley, said: "Over the past days we did foresee the effect of the terrible tragedy and we are reconsidering the situation locally.

"We would expect the airlines to appraise the situation and respond to developments at Gatwick.

"It does throw into danger the prosperity of Crawley which should not be a one-job town. However, the economy of Crawley is based on more than the airport and although it is a tremendous blow there are enough jobs that are not directly connected."

The job losses will reduce BA's 56,500-strong workforce by 12.5 per cent and includes 1,800 cuts announced earlier this month.

Des Turner, MP for Kemp Town in Brighton, said: "I think this is extremely sad.

"It is obviously a fall out from the events of last week. Clearly a lot of people in Brighton commute to Gatwick and many of them work for BA.

John de Mierre, vice chairman of the Cadia business association for Sussex and Surrey, defended BA's decision, insisting the company could not wait to see what relief measures would be forthcoming.

He said: "It's expected these redundancies will have implications for Gatwick. Fortunately unemployment in Sussex is fairly low. Hopefully there will be opportunities in other areas for those people who are losing their jobs."

Many Gatwick workers live in Sussex and business leaders are assessing the possible knock-on effects of the job losses to local companies and traders.