BA 'increased passenger numbers in crisis-hit 2001'

British Airways was one of the few leading world airlines to actually increase passenger numbers in crisis-hit 2001, new global figures have shown.

BA carried 40.0 million passengers last year – a 9.5% increase on its year 2000 figure, according to statistics from Airline Business magazine and the Flight International publication.

BA’s total put the UK carrier ninth in the list of passengers carried, with America’s Delta topping the list with 104.9 million passengers in 2001.

US carriers occupied the first seven places in the list, but only one of them - fourth-placed Southwest Airlines – carried more passengers in 2001 than in 2000.

BA’s increase last year took it ahead of Germany’s Lufthansa and also above Air France, with both these rival European carriers experiencing a dip in passenger levels last year.

The biggest fall in traffic among top 20 airlines was experienced by Japan Airlines, which saw passenger levels dip more than 20% last year.

With multi-million pound cost-cutting exercises now in place, BA will probably carry fewer passengers in 2002.

Flight International is wary of the future for global airlines. It says: “describing the current airline crisis as a downturn is misleading. It implies a dip in the standard business cycle that will soon be reversed.

“But the industry is not in the normal course of affairs, and probably never will be again. Many of the factors causing its troubles are not cyclical, but permanent – they cannot be ignored or ridden out, but must be confronted and overcome.

“Airlines must realise that today’s gloom, and not the halcyon days of the late 1990s, represents the new definition of business as usual.”

The top 10 airlines by passenger numbers in 2001 were:

AIRLINE PASSENGERS %age change on 2000

(million)

1. Delta (USA) 104.9 minus 0.7

2. American Airlines 80.7 minus 7.0

3. United (USA) 75.4 minus 12.0

4. Southwest (USA) 64.6 plus 1.3

5. US Airways 56.1 minus 8.0

6. Northwest (USA) 54.1 minus 8.6

7. Continental (USA) 44.2 minus 6.0

8. All Nippon Airways 43.2 minus 1.2

9. BRITISH AIRWAYS 40.0 plus 9.5

10.Lufthansa 39.7 minus 4.0