5th Feb 2014 16:10
LONDON (Alliance News) - International Consolidated Airlines Group, Wednesday reported a strong increase in traffic in January, as growth at British Airways continued to offset declines at Spanish airline Iberia.
The group, which is now made up of British Airways, Iberia and another Spanish carrier, Vueling, said traffic measured in revenue passenger kilometres rose 5% in January excluding Vueling. Growth was 11.1% including Vueling, which IAG acquired in April last year.
That was greater than the increase in capacity, pushing up its load factor, a measure of how full its planes are. Capacity in available seat kilometres rose 4.5% excluding Vueling, meaning load factor rose 0.4 percentage points. Including Vueling, load factor rose 0.1 points to 77.0%.
Traffic was up 7% at British Airways compared with a 5.7% rise in capacity, while traffic at Iberia fell 7% compared with a 5.2% decline in capacity.
Premium traffic, the airline group's most profitable traffic, increased 7.8% compared with the previous year.
The airline carried a total of 4.89 million passengers in January, up 29.% from last year's 3.79 million passengers. The increase was 6.4% excluding Vueling.
The biggest increases in passenger numbers came from Europe and flights in the UK and Spain, which increased 38% and 59% respectively. The increase was 12.4% and 3.6% excluding Vueling.
The only region to see passenger numbers fall was in Latin America and the Caribbean, which declined 5.4%. Traffic on North American routes rose 7.3%.
IAG said underlying conditions in its markets remain unchanged from those it set out last November.
IAG also announced that IAG Cargo signed a multi-year commercial agreement with Qatar Airways, to purchase capacity on Qatar Airways operated air cargo freighters from May 1. This comes at the same time as IAG Cargo said it is ending its agreement with Global Supply Systems to lease three Boeing 747-8 freighters.
Shares in IAG were down very slightly Wednesday afternoon, trading at 411.10 pence per share, 0.02% lower.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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