British Airways owner and Ryanair post increase in passenger traffic
BRITISH Airways parent company IAG yesterday reported a 3.5 per cent jump in traffic for July.
The figure, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, grew to 16.1bn. However, the actual number of passengers decreased 2.7 per cent to 5m.
IAG, which was formed by the merger between Spanish carrier Iberia and BA, was boosted by a 10 per cent growth in passengers in Latin America and the Caribbean and a nine per cent rise in Asia.
Traffic in the UK and Spain, however, dropped more than 20 per cent.
British Airways traffic rose by 6.2 per cent overall, with Iberia’s falling by more than two per cent.
Premium traffic grew at a faster rate than economy traffic and the company also saw its passenger load factor – the number of full seats per plane – inch up by 0.6 percentage points to 85.7 per cent.
IAG saw its shares fall by more than four per cent yesterday.
Meanwhile, Europe’s largest low-cost airline Ryanair saw passenger numbers increase to 8.1m in July, a six per cent increase from a year ago.
Ryanair said its load factor – a measure of how well a carrier is selling available seats – was 89 per cent for the month, up one percentage point from July 2010.