International Airlines Group (IAG)

[News Guru]

IAG February traffic up 1.4%

International Airlines Group, the holding company for BA and Iberia, said its passenger traffic increased last month by 1.4% compared to February 2010, driven by growth in demand for first and business class travel. However, its passenger load factor fell 3.3 percentage points to 72.8%.

Its more profitable premium - first and business-class - passenger increased increased by rose 8.2%, while non-premium traffic was 0.2% up.

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[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG traffic up 8%; premium traffic up 18%

International Airlines Group (IAG), the company formed by the merger of BA and Iberia, announced passenger traffic in March up by 8% on last year (passenger were up 6.3%). The group said the rise was driven by continued growth in first and business class travel, which was up 18.1%.

IAG reported an 8% rise in group traffic measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres for March, while premium traffic grew 18.1%. Capacity measured in Available Seat Kilometres was up 11.5%, with underlying traffic growth and capacity continuing the same trend as February. IAG carried 4.16 million passengers last month, up on the 3.92 million carried by BA and Iberia in March 2010.

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[News Guru]

[textarea]BA parent IAG to buy Air Portugal?

British Airways’ parent company IAG is reported to be planning a bid for Portugal’s national flag-carrier TAP Air Portugal, according to a report in The Sunday Times. TAP has been put up for sale by the Portuguese government as a condition of its financial bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

IAG’s chief executive Willie Walsh said before BA merged with Iberia that he had drawn up a list of 12 potential airlines that could be acquired by the airline's new holding company. He has not publicly confirmed the names of the airlines on IAG’s ‘wish list’ but they are reported to include airlines such as BMI and Finnair.

IAG could face competition from other major airline groups such as Lufthansa and Air France / KLM in the bidding process for TAP, which expected to start in the next few weeks. It could also trigger a European Commission probe, given it and Iberia's overlapping routes to South America.

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[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG plot TAP takeover

Willie Walsh, chief executive officer of British Airways and Iberia parent International Airlines Group (IAG), wants to merge Portuguese state-owned airline TAP SGPS SA the Times reports. He spoke yesterday about the possibility of including TAP within the airline holding company, the newspaper said.

IAG is interested in TAP ‘because it has a very strong network into Brazil,’ the Times quoted Walsh as saying. ‘They are the No. 1 player between Europe and Brazil.’

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[News Guru]

[textarea]American Airlines boss hopes for full merger with BA / IAG

The boss of American Airlines has raised the prospect of a full merger with British Airways and Iberia in a move that would create the world's largest airline, the Wall Street Journal reports. Tom Horton, the American Airlines president, said he believed that restrictions on the foreign ownership of US airlines would be relaxed before he retires - he is 50.

International Airlines Group (IAG), which owns the BA and Iberia, was given regulatory permission to form a transatlantic alliance with American last year. The joint venture allows them to co-operate on schedules, sell each others flights and share revenues from transatlantic operations. But that is currently as far as the co-operation can extend because the US restricts foreign ownership in domestic airlines to 25 percent, although Washington is under pressure from the European Union to relax these rules.

Mr Horton told the newspaper: ‘This alliance with BA and IAG is effectively a synthetic merger. Over time - I think in my working lifetime - foreign ownership rules in the US will become more flexible. This alliance could form the basis of a cross-border merger between our airlines.’

While a full merger remains a possibility for the future, Mr Horton said that American and IAG were working on plans to develop their existing alliance. They have already coordinated schedules so that AA and BA do not have flights leaving at the same time. That has allowed them to create a shuttle service from New York to London, with flights leaving every 30 minutes to 60 minutes during the evening.

The partners are also considering how to price their products to offer passengers as many options as possible. For example, BA's business class is widely regarded as superior to AA's and this creates the option to have a premium-priced business class and a cheaper option.

Mr Horton said: ‘The alliance with BA is a huge deal and is really just now getting traction. We are looking at putting as much product on the shelves as we can. In BA's business class, the beds are fully flat and selling that at a different price to our business class is under discussion.’

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[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG hires bank for TAP offer

International Airlines Group, the holding company of British Airways and Iberia, has hired US bank JP Morgan to advise on an offer for Portuguese airline TAP, according to reports in the financial press.

A purchase of TAP would help IAG improve earnings in expanding markets. IAG sees TAP as very attractive, the reports suggest, for its links to Central and South America. Willie Walsh, IAG's CEO, confirmed this week that the company is interested in acquiring TAP and BMI, but not Aer Lingus.

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[News Guru]

[textarea]BA parent ‘seen as frontrunner for BMI’

Lufthansa is to enter exclusive talks to sell its loss-making UK subsidiary BMI by the end of the month, with BA parent IAG the front-runner, Reuters ‘sources’ said today. A 'source close to the sales process' told Reuters: ‘The price won't be substantial. It is mainly about cleaning Lufthansa's balance sheet and getting rid of the debt.'

While Lufthansa would like to sell BMI as a whole, another source told Reuters the most likely outcome would be Lufthansa selling BMI's coveted slots at Heathrow, Europe's largest airport, to IAG. IAG would then pass on some of those slots to Virgin to relieve competition concerns.

The person said: ‘Lufthansa will likely sell BMI's slots for about £300 million pounds max and its stake in (air traffic manager) NATS and fetch about £400 million pounds in total, so just enough to recover from the losses accumulated since the BMI acquisition.'

With the Heathrow slots sold, smaller airlines such as Flybe or Eastern could then look to pick up BMI Regional. A Scottish group are also reported to be interested in the Aberdeen based unit. It is unclear from the article what would happen to the main BMI airline and its budget subsidiary bmibaby.

http://www.uk-airport-news.info/heathrow-airport-news-021111b.html[/textarea]

 

[Seasider]

Who wants Baby?
I don't think anyone does.

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG plans emerging markets expansion

BA parent IAG plans to expand into lucrative emerging markets, such as Latin America, the Telegraph reports. The group hopes to use the extra Heathrow take-off and landing-slots that will be gained through its proposed BMI takeover to accelerate growth into emerging markets.

Peter Hyde, analyst with Liberum Capital, told the newspaper that he expects the European Commission to waive through the deal in mid-March, despite a complaint from rival airline Virgin Atlantic, leaving IAG free to press ahead with international expansion plans. IAG is also eyeing Portuguese airline TAP, one of a number of state-owned companies earmarked for privatisation. TAP is seen as an attractive target for IAG given its exposure to Brazil.

For more information on this airport news story visit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... rkets.html[/textarea]

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG’s BMI takeover ‘to win EU approval’

British Airways parent IAG will be given the go-ahead by the EU to buy BMI today, after offering to give up additional airport slots, Reuters reports 'a person familiar with the matter said'. IAG has reached a deal worth £172.5 million to buy BMI and had initially proposed to relinquish 10 slots. It increased the number to 14 slots after rivals complained the concessions were not sufficient. Reuters says' it was not clear at which airports the 14 slots are located'; we assume Heathrow.

The European Union executive was due to decide by today whether to give the deal regulatory clearance. IAG beat rival bidder Virgin late last year in the race to acquire loss-making BMI, which is the second biggest holder of coveted slots at Heathrow Airport after BA. IAG currently has a 43.1 percent share of the take-off and landing slots at Heathrow. Together, IAG and BMI have a combined share of 53 percent of the airport's slots, but this will be affected by the slots surrendered.

For more information on this airport news story visit: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/ ... 1820120329[/textarea]

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG boss Walsh misses out on £1.35m bonus

BA parent IAG's chief executive Willie Walsh has missed out on £1.35m of his bonus after the group failed to hit its financial targets, the Irish Independent reports. The former BA boss, who now heads up the parent company of BA and Spain's Iberia, received £302,000 of a possible annual bonus of £1.65m. He was paid a basic salary of £825,000, which was frozen in 2012.

In the company's annual report, published this week, IAG said: ‘Although there has been a strong full-year performance, we have not met our stretching financial targets, which were set at the beginning of the year.’

Mr Walsh's bonus is set at up to 200% of his salary. Other senior executives including BA's chief, Keith Williams, and Iberia boss Rafael Sanchez-Lozano also missed out on part of their bonus payments.

For more information on this airport news story visit: http://www.independent.ie/business/euro ... 73313.html[/textarea]

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG says bmibaby and BMI Regional sales ‘doubtful’

IAG has raised doubts that it will be able to sell bmibaby and BMI Regional, putting jobs in those units under threat. It had always made it clear that it was not interested in owning the two loss making units and received a ‘significant price reduction’ for its BMI purchase for agreeing to take the businesses.

IAG boss Willie Walsh said yesterday that he is ‘not confident’ about selling airlines. He said: ‘These are airlines that Lufthansa struggled to sell, but we are going to make an effort to sell them.'

About 330 people are employed at Aberdeen based BMI Regional and a further 470 at East Midlands Airport based bmibaby. IAG previously said that if it cannot sell the two units it will shut them down, but now says that it is reviewing all of its options and that talk of job losses would be premature.

For more information on this airport news story visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17817981[/textarea]

 

[Aviador]

[textarea]UK government is damaging aviation industry, warns BA boss Willie Walsh

British Airways boss Willie Walsh has accused the Government of doing all it can to damage air travel as he called for Heathrow to be expanded.

Willie Walsh has accused the Government taking aviation for granted and the contribution it made to the economy.

Mr Walsh, head of BA parent company International Airlines Group, ratcheted up his criticism of the Coalition at the industry's global summit in Beijing.

"They are top of the list of governments who don't get it," he said. "They are out of touch with the opportunities which exist for aviation."

He accused ministers of "doing everything they can to suppress and damage" aviation.

Read the full storey: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... Walsh.html[/textarea]

I suspect many industry professionals will agree with BA boss Willie Walsh. It's a struggle to find any positive comments about the aviation industry from government ministers. It seems as though aviation has just become yet another taxing tool.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I'm not party political in any way - I have a healthy distrust of politicians.

I'm amazed that the Conservatives - yes, I know they have to take account of the sensibilities of their Lib Dem marriage (made in hell) partner - that is traditionally the party of business is behaving in such an unfathomable way.

That they are effectively emasculating the UK aviation industry by their actions, or inaction is a more accurate description because they have no aviation or national transport plan, is astounding and only made worse by their arrogant refusal to listen to the shouts of protest from all sections of the industry, and beyond.

 

[Aviador]

I see Willie Walsh is now throwing his weight behind the idea of a new London airport saying even building a third runway at Heathrow will only last around 20 years before another new runway would be required. I am starting to wonder if the idea of building a new airport with multiple runways is the right way forward? I'm no swampy, but I do think it is important to be sensible about the future development of airports in the most sustainable way possible. I mean do we stop at four new runways or do we go the full hog and try for eight runways? Reality check setting in. London and the UK are grossly overpopulated, London has at least five airports of which at least three of them are suitable for developing without the need to more airports. It sounds all cosy having a super hub airport in one area of the capital but there's no reason why traffic cannot be spread across airports throughout the South East. I know a large part of the problem is having all alliance airlines together to maximise onward connections but surely the different alliances could use different airports?

 

[Aviador]

It has been reported Spanish Bankia, which owns a 12 per cent stake in IAG has come under increasing pressure to sell its investment after asking for a USD 24 billion bailout.

 

[Aviador]

[textarea]Iberia drags IAG to Q2 loss but British Airways turns profit

LONDON — The owner of British Airways and Iberia has reported a second-quarter loss due to a fall-off in business at the Spanish carrier.

For the three months ending June 30, International Consolidated Airlines Group reported a loss of €95 million ($116 million) compared to a profit of €38 million a year ago.

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle ... story.html[/textarea]

One of the problems of having your business split between different economies but this could also be regarded as a buffer for the group. In the event that the Spanish government have to ask European Central Bank for a full bail out things could get turbulent for the International Airlines Group IAG before they get better.

 

[Aviador]

[textarea]BA boss Willie Walsh not hopeful over air passenger duty

The head of British Airways has said there is no chance of Air Passenger Duty being scrapped on short-haul flights from Northern Ireland.

Legislation to cut the duty on long-haul flights is going through the assembly.

However, Willie Walsh said he had no hope that Westminster would get rid of the £13 tax paid by passengers on short-haul flights.

Full Story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19998111[/textarea]

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]British Airways helps boost IAG traffic by 3.2 per cent in October

INTERNATIONAL Airlines Group yesterday posted a strong rise in October traffic, as a robust performance from British Airways made up for weakness at Spanish sister firm Iberia.

Traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose by 3.2 per cent versus October 2011, while passenger load factor – a measure of how well it fills its planes – was up 0.4 percentage points at 80.5 per cent, it said.

IAG said its first and business class travel – the most profitable part of its passenger business – rose 3.2 per cent, while non-premium traffic was also up 3.2 per cent.

British Airways’ October traffic was up 6.2 per cent compared to a 3.7 percent fall at Iberia.

Full Story: http://www.cityam.com/latest-news/briti ... nt-october[/textarea]

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]IAG says 'no changes' following Vueling purchase

The International Airlines Group has denied suggestions that it will axe more of loss-making Iberia’s short-haul routes following the completion of its purchase of Spanish budget airline Vueling.

The acquisition of the controlling stake by IAG has also provoked speculation that British Airways could abandon some of its Gatwick routes to Spain, leaving them to Vueling, which has a much lower cost base.

Full story: http://buyingbusinesstravel.com/news/23 ... g-purchase[/textarea]