(Reuters) – British Airways owner IAG (LON:) is not planning to raise billions of euros from shareholders to get the company through the extended COVID-19 crisis, its chief executive Luis Gallego told The Sunday Times.

Gallego stated to The Sunday Times https:// that he did not believe it was necessary to issue rights and said that they were not looking into the possibility. He also added that the company is exploring “different options” when it comes to banking.

After media speculation over the company’s plans for financial stability, Gallego made these comments.

IAG had announced in May that it would raise 825m euros (967 million dollars) through a convertible bond. This will help to strengthen its balance sheet.

In May, IAG announced plans to raise 2.75 billion euros (3.22 billion dollars) through capital raising.

Times reported Gallego that while the group was in high debt, it also had strong liquidity at 10.2 million euros.

“We have revolving credit facilities, we are analysing other ways of financing the group so we have alternatives before we [consider] another rights issue,” he told the newspaper adding that repaying debts will be group’s priority.

British airline easyJet Plc (LON: ) Plc chose to raise $1.7billion from shareholders earlier this month to help recover from the pandemic. It declined to be approached by Wizz Air for a takeover offer.

Gallego answered that he has spoken to executives of easyJet about a merger. According to the newspaper, Gallego stated: “We speak to all airlines that could be interesting to us.”

($1 = 0.8529 euros)