Iberia has reported its best results for the past five years.
The Spanish national carrier said its earnings for the first six months of 2007 were 74.8m while its operating earnings increased by 84.2m to 70m.
The airline said its pre-tax earning rose by 23.7% in the six months to 394m.
Revenues rose by 2.6% to 2,666.6m while recurring expenses dropped slightly by 0.7% to 2,596.6m.
Iberia said in the period, its occupancy rose by 2.3% to a record 80.2% and its business class performed "brilliantly" with sales rising by 8.3%.
It said it had already reached its 2008 target of 62% business class occupancy.
Iberia said its strongest growth was on log haul routes where there was a 10.1% increase in revenue per kilometre (RPK) and a 6.5% rise in available seat kilometres (ASKs).
There was a growth of 23.7% in the number of passengers on Business Class Plus on transatlantic routes while the load factor grew by 8.3%.
This contributed to a 6.5% increase in unit revenues on these long haul routes and a 17.5% rise in total passenger revenues.
* Iberia said that the consortium bidding to buy the airline was on course to complete its due diligence exercise by the end of the month. The consortium which includes BA, private equity group TPG and three Spanish companies, has bid 3.4bn for the airline.
* see new jobs on BTE's recruitment site www.businesstraveljobs.com