International Airlines Group (IAG) has announced an operating profit of approaching £1.1 billion for the first half of 2023. The group owns British Airways, Aer Lingus, Vueling, Iberia, Iberia Express, IAG Cargo, LEVEL and others. By the end of 2023 the Group expects flight capacity to reach pre-pandemic levels. Last year the Group posted an operating loss of £383 million.
French air traffic control strikes have continued to cause disruption, with BA primarily affected because its flights out of Heathrow and Gatwick rely heavily on having access to French airspace. With chaos reigning during the summer of 2022 and BA forced to cancel thousands of flights due to labour shortages, especially at its main Heathrow hub, this year the carrier has set about 4,000 people so far in 2023, mainly in ground operations, and leasing additional aircraft with crew to avoid similar problems.
BA Chief Executive, Sean Doyle, said the airline was not yet seeing any effects on bookings from the summer heatwave, which has brought extreme temperatures to much of southern Europe and the US. He said the coronavirus pandemic had taught BA to be “agile” in rerouting, but added: “I think it’s too early to gauge if fundamental demand patterns are changing. Traditional markets of southern Europe are very, very strong this year and actually they continue to book strongly.”
IAG said leisure demand remained strong across all its airlines – which include Aer Lingus and the Spanish carriers Iberia and Vueling – for the summer months, with about 80% of seats already booked until the end of September. While capacity has returned across the group, the number of long-haul and premium seats flown by BA is expected to remain below pre-COVID levels until 2025 and 2026, after the airline retired its 747 jumbos during the pandemic
BA announced it was ordering another six Boeing 787 Dreamliners to meet returning demand. Luis Gallego, the chief executive of IAG, said: “Our strong profits since the start of the year are helping to fund investment for our customers and to improve our balance sheet by reducing debt. We don’t see any sign of a slowdown in the demand.”
