But airline's load factor rises
British Airways today reported a drop 11% in its premium traffic fro July, compared with the same month last year.
The UK national carrier said there was a 3.5% increase in economy traffic and, overall, a 1% rise in traffic.
With capacity down 2.7% compared with the July 2008, the airline said its load factor rose by 3.1% to 84.6%.
The fall in premium traffic is the lowest for several months. It fell 14.9% in June, 17.7% in April, 17.2% in May while in February the fall was 20.2%.
But the airline said today that market conditions were still very challenging.
The airline said that "underlying volume and seat factors stabilised in the first quarter and are expected to improve in the peak summer months."
But it said yields would be under pressure from the impact of reduced fuel surcharges and exchange rates.
It added: "Yield uncertainty continues to make revenue forecasting difficult. Based on current fuel prices and exchange rates the full year fuel bill is expected to be between £450m and £500m lower than last year."
www.ba.com