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Strikes to cost BA £40 million
The wildcat strikes that grounded all British Airways flights for 30 hours last month is estimated to have cost the airline £40m, analysts have said.
Operations were disrupted when catering and baggage staff walked out, forcing the carrier to cancel hundreds of flights.
Agreements have since been reached, but not before it cost the carrier millions of pounds. BA declined to reveal its own figure but city analysts said it would be in the region of £40 million.
The strikes were also blamed for a 3.9% fall in passengers during August, a decline which saw low cost carrier Ryanair carry more passengers than BA in a single month for the first time.
BA said it carried 3.101 million while Ryanair revealed 3.25 million people travelled on the airline, a 27% increase on the same period last year.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary bated BA by claiming it was now the world’s favourite airline.
“Ryanair’s passenger volumes are growing rapidly thanks to new destinations, lowest ever fares, industry leading punctuality and customer service, and Ryanair’s guarantee of no fuel charges, not today, not tomorrow, not ever,” he said.
The biggest impact for BA was in its premium-class cabins where traffic fell 4.7%.
The airline added that the fluctuating cost of fuel prices was making it more difficult to make an accurate profit forecast but reiterated its prediction that total revenue for the year to March 2006 would grow by around 5.5% to 6.5%.
Report by Steve Jones
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