British Airways-owner IAG is not in a position where it has to ask for a specific bailout from the government to see it through the coronavirus pandemic, its chief executive said on Monday.

Britain's government has said stricken airlines should first exhaust all options for raising external cash, such as via their shareholders, before they ask the treasury for more support.

"We're not in that position," Willie Walsh told a parliamentary committee hearing.

(Reporting by Sarah Young and Kate Holton; editing by Michael Holden)