British Airways, Europe's second-biggest airline, said today its April passenger traffic increased by 16.1% on the recovery in travel demand after the Iraq war and SARS virus last year.
The UK carrier said, however, underlying market conditions were unchanged, with lucrative long-haul first and business class passenger volumes still above last year's levels but non-premium passenger volumes remaining 'very sensitive' to ticket prices. The airline said that first and business class passenger volumes were still below levels of two years ago.
BA said its passenger load factor, which measures the number of seats filled as a percentage of available capacity, was 75.5% in April, up 6.2 points from the same month last year.
BA lost its mantle as Europe's biggest airline this week when Air France, in a deal that would make it the world's biggest airline by revenues, won 90% of its Dutch rival KLM in the first cross-border merger of major airlines.
BA has undertaken the most radical restructuring among its European peers, slashing about 13,000 jobs, simplifying its fleet, cutting unprofitable short-haul routes and adopting the online ticketing tactics used by its no-frills rivals.
These changes over the past two years are about a drive to lower fixed costs such as staff and ticket distribution in an attempt to reach its target of a sustainable 10% operating margin as well as fend off the tough competition.
