Staff at London City airport will go into work today unsure whether they will be employed by the same owners when they head home.

London City is one of the many businesses owned by AIG, the US financial conglomerate thought to be close to collapse last night as the credit crisis threatened to take its latest scalp.

Bankers and politicians warned yesterday that the collapse of Lehman Brothers would be of small concern compared with that of AIG, and the US Federal Reserve was last night coming under growing pressure to save the ailing insurance group.

The future of London City – which AIG, GE and Credit Suisse bought for £750m in 2006 – will be well down the Fed’s priority list when deciding whether, as some analysts have suggested, AIG is 'too big to fail'.

Daily Telegraph