British Airways carried 365,000 fewer passengers last month than in June 2009 amid disruption by striking cabin crew – a fall of 11.1% that took BA’s total lost passengers in three months to 1.4 million.
However, the fall in BA passengers was lower than in May when the airline reported 392,000 fewer seats sold than last year.
Cabin-crew members of the union Unite were on strike for seven days in May and eight in June and are poised to begin a vote on a BA offer to end their dispute today.
Traffic over the three months to June was down 14.9% year on year reflecting not just the strike disruption but the impact of the ash cloud that shut down airports in April and saw the airline’s monthly traffic decline by one quarter.
BA premium traffic has been less affected by the strikes than economy traffic, but was 9.2% down year on year in June compared with 6.5% down in May. Economy traffic was down 11.4% in June.