British Airways mainline scheduled passenger traffic in the month, measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs), showed growth of 9.8 per cent on last year. This represented the strongest rate of growth since December 1996. Traffic growth on UK/Europe services of eight per cent was helped by the strike by Air France pilots in the first week of the month.

On intercontinental services, traffic growth of 10.3 per cent reflected a continuation of strong growth in the Americas region pegged back by modest traffic growth in Asia Pacific.

Premium traffic in the month grew by 0.9 per cent compared with growth in the main cabin of 11.5 per cent. There are plans to enhance the Club World product later this year.

With total mainline scheduled capacity measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs) up by 12.9 per cent, the passenger load factor for mainline scheduled services was down 2.1 points from last year at 75.3 per cent.

Traffic growth in the European subsidiaries, Deutsche BA and Air Liberté, amounted to 9.7 per cent on a capacity decline of 4.5 per cent. This resulted in an improvement in the passenger load factor in those subsidiary companies of 8.9 points to 68.2 per cent. The passenger load factor on total group scheduled services was thus down 1.4 points to 75.0 per cent.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MONTH

British Airways and American Airlines submitted to the US Department of Transportation (US DoT) their reply to previous rounds of submissions in the US DoT review of their proposed alliance. The two airlines urged the US DoT to approve the proposed alliance promptly, subject to conclusion of an open skies aviation agreement between the US and UK, and guaranteed that they will not fully implement their alliance until slots are made available to enable other airlines to begin 14 new daily services between the US and London’s Heathrow airport.

British Airways and LOT Polish Airlines received approval from the UK Department of Transportation to codeshare on Manchester - Warsaw and Gatwick - Gdansk for the rest of the summer schedule. This covers a total of eight weekly codeshared flights, three services operated by each airline on Manchester - Warsaw and two LOT services on Gatwick - Gdansk. The agreement is also supported by link-up of frequent flyer programmes on these routes.

——-