Revenues drop 19.6%
Iberia has posted a consolidated loss of €16.4M for the third quarter compared with a €30.4m profit for the same period in 2008.
The Spanish national carrier, which has just announced a merger with British Airways, said operating revenues in the three months to the end of September fell by 19.6%.
It said the losses were an "improvement" on the previous two quarters when losses amounted to €165m.
Losses for the first nine months of the year now stood at €181.9m.
But the fall in revenue was "in keeping with the trend throughout the year" which has seen passenger numbers decline.
Iberia said its load factor was 82.1%, a drop of 1.1% on last year.
But while domestic and European flights were fuller than last year, international traffic had suffered the "sharpest decline".
Iberia said that business travel continued to be "hard hit by the economic crisis".
But its Business Plus performed slightly better in the third quarter, with a decline of just 9.8%, compared to the 19.7% posted in the first half of the year.
It said its market share of business traffic inched a half-point higher in the quarter to 23.8%, enabling the airline to remain in the lead.
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