Sat, 10/30/2010 - 22:27 by Prince damin
London -- Airline industry analyst Tony Shepard at Charles Stanley said it was conceivable British Airways could post profits of more than $800 million this year.
With the recent resurgence in business travel, the airline posted a 17.2-percent gain in revenue per seat this year despite a drop-off of 7.3 percent in the volume of passengers, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.
Passenger numbers have dropped this year due to worker strikes and flights canceled while ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano reduced visibility in the early summer months.
Higher revenue per seat is indicative of BA reducing discounts and raising prices. It also implies the airline is selling more tickets for the more lucrative business sections on flights.
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Wed, 10/27/2010 - 10:09 by Rakhi
London -- Many of the airport security measures demanded by the United States are unnecessary, the British Airways chairman told an industry group Tuesday.
Martin Broughton, speaking to the annual conference of the U.K. Airport Operators Association, said British authorities should not "kowtow to the Americans every time they want something done," the Financial Times reported.
"America does not do internally a lot of the things they demand that we do," he said. "We shouldn't stand for that. We should say we'll only do things which we consider to be essential and that you Americans also consider essential."
Other British officials, both in government and the industry, have said they are also frustrated.
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Sat, 08/28/2010 - 10:03 by Rakhi
London -- British Airways has apologized for any "undue distress" caused when a pilot inadvertently activated an emergency landing alarm during a flight.
The airline said the pilot on the flight from London to Hong Kong pushed a button while traveling over the North Sea that triggered an automated message informing passengers of an emergency water landing, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
Officials said the flight's cabin crew then went up and down the aisles to assure the 275 passengers aboard that there was nothing wrong.
British Airways apologized for any "undue distress" experienced by the passengers.
Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
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Thu, 07/15/2010 - 11:39 by Pankaj Damin
Brussels -- European Union regulators agreed Wednesday to allow British Airways and Iberia to merge and to form a partnership with American Airlines.
The combination of BA and Spain's Iberia will form a $7.5 billion company expected to save about $530 million a year within five years, despite the companies' intention to keep the brands separate, ABC News reported Wednesday.
The partnership with American Airlines, as part of the Oneworld Alliance, allows for coordination of marketing, sales and flight scheduling.
The airlines said Wednesday they expected approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation sometime this fall.
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Sat, 06/05/2010 - 22:20 by Inderjit Singh
London -- A third five-day strike by British Airways cabin crews has disrupted hundreds of flights and is costing the airline $10 million a day, officials said.
Thousands of BA passengers Saturday had their flights canceled or rescheduled because of the long-running labor dispute between the airline and the cabin crews, represented by the union Unite, The Daily Telegraph reported.
British Airways said it planned to fly about 75 percent of the customers -- about 65,000 people -- who had paid for flights during this week's strike, which is scheduled to end Wednesday.
Pay and working conditions are the key sticking points in the dispute, which began in March and could continue in July with yet another strike, the Telegraph reported.
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Mon, 05/31/2010 - 21:56 by Inderjit Singh
London -- British Airways crew members have begun a five-day walkout, causing many flights in and out of Heathrow to be canceled, a union official said.
Cabin crew ended a five-day strike Friday and had also been on strike for seven days in March, The Times of London said.
The airline said contingency plans, with more cabin crew reporting for work, will allow 65,000 passengers to fly during the five days, causing less disruption to the flight schedule than previous strikes.
Cabin crew, in a dispute with management over pay and working conditions, plan to strike again June 5 if no agreement is reached, said Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, which represents the bulk of the airline's 12,000 cabin crew, .
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Sun, 05/30/2010 - 10:28 by Rakhi
London -- The conciliation service Acas said strike talks at British Airways have broken up without an agreement.
BA cabin crews were set to begin a five-day walkout Sunday. Sky News quoted an Acas spokesperson as saying: "BA and Unite met (Friday) ... Talks were adjourned without the parties reaching an agreement and Acas will be in contact with both parties to arrange future talks."
The report said cabin crews were planning 10 more days of strikes in a dispute over pay and working conditions, including the five-day walkout set to begin Sunday. Unite had just concluded five days of strikes.
The report said another five days of strike action are planned from June 5 if an agreement is not reached.
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Mon, 05/24/2010 - 10:39 by Samia Sehgal
British Airways has scrapped several flights after its 12,000 cabin crew started a five-day strike on Monday. The strike is in protest of Chief Executive Officer Willie Walsh’s plans job and wage cuts in an effort to overturn the record losses.
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Mon, 05/10/2010 - 22:18 by Inderjit Singh
London -- British prosecutors said Monday they would not present any evidence to press a case against four British Airways executives accused of price-fixing.
The case collapsed as a year's worth of Virgin Atlantic e-mails surfaced last week, including one that said Virgin Atlantic would raise its fuel surcharges in March 2005 without notifying BA, The Times of London reported Monday.
BA sales and marketing director Andrew Crawley and three former BA executives were set to go on trial in the case. Virgin Atlantic had been granted immunity, as they had blown the whistle on the price-fixing scheme.
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Sat, 03/27/2010 - 21:59 by Inderjit Singh
London -- Hundreds of flights were grounded at London's Heathrow Airport as British Airways cabin crews went on strike Saturday for a second consecutive weekend.
Thousands of travelers inconvenienced by the walkout would experience further disruption if British rail workers follow through with their threat to strike April 6, The Times of London reported Saturday.
It would be Britain's first national rail strike in 16 years.
At Heathrow, British Airways officials said they would get try to get the majority of their flights in the air this weekend with volunteer cabin crews and chartered aircraft.
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Sat, 03/20/2010 - 21:44 by Inderjit Singh
London -- A strike by British Airways cabin crews has already cost the airline more than $37 million in business, industry analysts said.
The three-day strike begun Friday was the first by the airlines cabin crews in 13 years and disrupted travel for thousands of passengers, especially at England's Heathrow airport, the airline's main hub.
The strike, as of Saturday, had already cost the airline more than $37 million in canceled tickets and contingency costs, analysts told The Daily Telegraph.
British Airways said it hoped to keep flights operating for about 49,000 passengers Saturday and Sunday. It usually handles about 75,000 passengers during a normal weekend day.
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Fri, 03/19/2010 - 22:02 by Inderjit Singh
London -- British Airways said contingency plans were in place to continue some service if flight crews began their strike, as scheduled, at midnight Friday in Britain.
Talks continued to avert a strike of 13,000 workers, the Daily Telegraph reported.
BA said it had leased charter planes with crews to handle some flights. Trained crew members from other airlines would handle other flights. The airline expected to carry about 65 percent of the passengers it would have carried without a strike, the newspaper said.
If a Friday agreement was reached, it would be too late to recover all the cancellations. The strike has already cost BA about $38 million in lost business, officials said.
Copyright 2010 United Press International.
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