IAG Airlines, the parent company of BA and Iberia, has revealed a big hike in business travel traffic during July, traditionally a quiet month in the corporate world.
Premium traffic in July was 14.2% ahead of July 2010, compared with non-premium which was only 2% up.
The two airlines carried just under 5 million passengers in July, compared with just over 5m in July 2010, a change of 2%. North American passenger numbers were up by 7% to just under 800,000
However, passenger numbers on BA and Iberia’s domestic flights dropped by more than 20% compared with last July to 950,000. Load factors on the domestic routes are slightly higher than last July, suggesting the drop in passenger numbers reflects a big drop in capacity.
The load factor across both airlines’ network came in at 85.7% this July compared with 85.1% last time.
The July traffic figures also provide a running total for IAG so far this year. The combined number of passengers carried up to the end of July was 29.8m, compared with 28.7m at the same stage last year.
Load factors for the first seven months of 2011 of 78.2%, only 0.1% higher than at the same stage last year.