IAG losses widen as new routes announced
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British Airways and Iberia parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) saw its losses double to £200m following higher fuel costs and the Iberia pilot strike.
The industrial action cost the airline group £20m in what IAG’s chief financial officer Enrique Dupuy called a ‘difficult quarter for national carriers’.
However, Dupuy revealed a strong performance from London’ traffic, particularly on trans-atlantic routes across both premium and non-premium. Its revenue increased 7.8% in the first quarter results against relatively flat capacity growth. Looking ahead IAG said it expects long-haul premium traffic to remain popular in 2012 and breakeven for its full-year results.
Meanwhile with its Heathrow-Seoul flights to launch later this year, Willie Walsh, announced BA plans to launch flights from Heathrow to Leeds Bradford, Rotterdam and Zagreb as well as increase frequencies to key destinations.
Keith Williams, CEO of BA said 18 new routes are expected to be launched with a mixture of short and long-haul destinations. “We’d expect two thirds of slots to stay short-haul and one third to stay long-haul and this process has started with Seoul,” he added.
Speaking to analysts and media this morning, Williams it will continue to ‘transform’ Heathrow as an IAG hub, while bmi’s restructuring is set to cost £92m, most of which will be soaked in 2012’s figures. With several flight codes due to switch on 23 May from bmi to BA, another tranche will follow in June. Williams said IAG has no plans to use its A330s although all other aircraft will transfer over by Christmas this year.
