The owner of British Airways, IAGreported an increase in profits last quarter due to good performance on its North and South Atlantic routes.
Operating profits rose to €1.745 billion in the July-September quarter, up from €1.216 billion in the third quarter of 2022, as IAG became the latest airline group to benefit from the leisure travel boom. “This quarter represents a record performance for IAG. This allows us to invest in the business and reduce a significant portion of our debt”explains Luis Gallego, general director of the group. “During the third quarter, we saw sustained strong demand across all our routes, particularly across the North and South Atlantic and across all leisure destinations in Europe. We continue to develop our hubs from Barcelona, Dublin, London and Madrid, supported by deliveries from our fleet and future orders. »
IAG claims that summer monthfrom July to September, were particularly successful: “British Airways’ total revenue increased by 20% in the quarter, on capacity growth of 25%, driven in particular by strong leisure demand. » Note that thehas ability of British Airways is still down 10% compared to 2019. “Capacity recovery at British Airways was lower than at other operating companies, reflecting the retirement of the Boeing fleet 747-400 of British Airways as part of its response to Covid. -19 and the slower restoration of capacity in the Asia-Pacific region »adds IAG.
The figures would have been better without “Wider disruptions across the company, including the UK Nats systems outage in August”. The outage of the UK’s air traffic control (ATC) system for several hours on August 28 led to the cancellation of more than 1,500 flights across all airlines, triggering an administrative investigation by the UK government.
