But economy passengers increase
British Airways today (September 3) reported a new drop of 11.9% in its premium traffic for August but the carrier said economy traffic rose by 1.3% for month compared with 2008.
The fall in premium traffic in August, a holiday month, is a slight rise on the 11% figure for July.
But it is lower than falls of 14.9% in June, 17.7% in April, 17.2% in May and 20.2% in February.
The UK carrier said that traffic fell 0.7%, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, compared with the same month in 2008 while capacity was down 2.4%.
The load factor for the month was 84.7%, a rise of 1.5% on last year.
The airline said that trading conditions in August remained "unchanged with yields under pressure from the year on year impact of lower fuel surcharges and exchange movements."
It said that during the month, shareholders had backed plans to raise £350m through the issue of convertible bonds, with the issue closing "successfully" on August 13.
The airline also resumed talks, initially at ceo level, with the Unite union over the airline's plans for 3,700 redundancies, a two year pay freeze and changes in working conditions.
The talks had previously broken down despite intervention by the UK arbitration service ACAS.
www.ba.com