British Airways has reported a rise in pre-tax profit for the first quarter ended 30 June to £65 million ($102 million), up from £40 million in 2001, but says full-year revenues are now expected to be lower than those of last year. Operating profit increased to £158 million from £50 million, passenger yields were up 5% while revenue fell by nearly 11% to £2.05 billion. Passenger capacity in terms of available seat kilometres was reduced by 14.5%, while revenue passenger kilometres fell 13.8%. Passenger load factor was up 0.6 percentage points to 70.5%. BA adds that net costs were down 14.6% for the quarter while unit costs fell 2.6%. BA reduced its net costs by 14.6%compared to last year by cutting 6,900 jobs, and chairman Lord Marshall says further cost cuts will be needed to improve the operating results.
Source: Flight International
