£3.8bn loss for BA owner IAG

BRITISH Airways’ parent company IAG swung to a pre-tax loss of €4.2billion (£3.8billion) in the first six months of the year.

This is down from a £0.9billion profit in the same period a year ago.

Revenue was £4.8billion, some 56 per cent lower than 2019’s levels.

IAG announced a plan to strengthen its balance sheet by raising £2.49billion through a proposed capital increase.

Chief executive Willie Walsh said: “All IAG airlines made substantial losses. As a result of government travel restrictions, quarter two passenger traffic fell by 98.4 per cent on a capacity reduction in the quarter of 95.3 per cent. We have seen evidence that demand recovers when government restrictions are lifted.

“Our airlines have put in place measures to provide additional reassurance to their customers and employees on board and at the airport.

“We continue to expect that it will take until at least 2023 for passenger demand to recover to 2019 levels.”

The firm said it is “restructuring its cost base to reduce each airline’s size”.

In April, it announced that 12,000

British Airways jobs could be cut. Mr Walsh said customers with pre-existing bookings are continuing to fly to and from Spain despite the UK Government’s decision to advise against non-essential travel to the country and re-impose quarantine requirements for those returning.

“People who have had bookings, they appear to continue to be travelling to and from Spain,” he said. “Our bookings are being suppressed by government restrictions. When the restrictions are removed we see a significant increase in bookings.”

Mr Walsh said the scale of the challenge faced by the airline industry after 9/11 in 2001 and the global financial crisis in 2009 is “much smaller” than what it faces due to the pandemic.

“Anyone who believes this is just a temporary downturn and fixed with temporary measures, I’m afraid seriously misjudges what we’re going through.

“This will represent a structurally changed industry and that’s why we’ve taken the action that we’ve taken and why we believe now is the right time to raise additional capital.”

‘It will be 2023 until passenger demand recovers to 2019 levels’