British Airways is expecting improved yields to generate an 8% revenue increase for the present financial year, after the carrier turned in strong third-quarter figures.
Its operating profit for the nine months to 31 December was up by 20% to £612 million ($1.09 billion) while revenues rose by 8.4% to £6.4 billion.
BA chairman Martin Broughton says that “some yield improvement” is still expected for the current financial year, which will help drive up the airline’s revenues. The airline saw a strong performance in premium class traffic in the quarter.
But he is warning that the carrier cannot be complacent in the current market conditions and says that it needs to keep up “significant” promotional activity to maintain seat factors.
Fuel costs, while still high, have not caused BA to change its outlook on expenditure; the carrier still expects fuel costs to be up by £525 million this year.
BA says that underlying costs, excluding fuel, will be about 1% higher; the carrier had originally forecast that these costs would remain flat.
During the third quarter BA generated operating profits of £175 million, up 29%, as revenue increased by nearly 9% to £2.12 billion.
Source: Flight International
