British Airways is seeking to fill a new role of chief operations officer to replace two executives who quit in the wake of the Heathrow Terminal 5 fiasco.

A British Airways spokeswoman said the airline was looking at a "variety of means" to fill the post, created to fill the previous roles of customer services executive and operations executive.

But the spokeswoman declined to confirm reports in the Observer and Independent newspaper that a headhunter instructed by BA had been told to find a recruit who could be groomed to take over from BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh.

"It would be premature to say that," the spokeswoman said.

BA was not able to give a timeframe for the appointment of the new chief operations officer because there were likely to be a limited pool of candidates to fill the role which will involve heading up a staff of 20,000 people, the spokeswoman said.