BA profits soar by £100m – staff get £48m bonus
Annual pre-tax profits at British Airways rose by more than £100 million to £620 million in the year to March.
Chief executive Willie Walsh revealed that the airline’s short haul network had moved into the black for the first time in a decade.
But he stressed that more needed to be done with total costs up by more than 8% with fuel and employee costs “a challenge”.
BA’s annual fuel bill rose by 44.7% to £1.6 billion, while staff costs were up by 5%.
Announcing the improved profit from £513 million the previous year, Walsh said: “These are good results with revenue performance driven by improvements in seat factors and yield.
“We achieved an operating margin of 8.3% and as a result all of our staff will share in a £48 million bonus. We remain committed to our goal of reaching 10% margin by 2008.”
He added: “Self-service check-in, both online and at airport kiosks, has been very well accepted by our customers. We continue to enhance and develop new products and, this summer, we will upgrade our inflight entertainment and introduce our new Club World flat bed.”
BA turned around a four quarter pre-tax loss of £6 million last year into a profit of £91 million.
Chairman Martin Broughton described market conditions as “broadly unchanged”, saying that revenue was expected to improve by 5-6% in the current year, up from a previous estimate of 4-5% due to the impact of fuel surcharges and increases in seat factor.
“As previously stated, fuel costs, net of hedging, are expected to be about £600 million more than last year, up from our previous guidance of £400 million, due to the recent strong rise in fuel prices,” he said. “Costs, excluding fuel, are expected to be unchanged.”
Report by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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