Business travel volume at International Airlines Group carriers, including British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus, in the third quarter collectively reached 64 percent of 2019 levels while business travel revenue reached 74 percent, IAG CEO Luis Gallego said Friday during a quarterly earnings call.
Those figures compare with a collective 60 percent of 2019 business travel volume and 69 percent of revenue that IAG carriers reached in the second quarter, he said.
“Corporate demand continues to recover more slowly, particularly at British Airways,” Gallego said, noting as he did in the prior quarter that business travel recovery correlates with corporate return-to-office strategies.
“There has been a difference in the rate of recovery of different types of business trips and regions,” Gallego said. “For example, long-haul business trips have recovered faster than short-haul.”
Gallego also noted that business travel recovery has been inconsistent among IAG airlines. While British Airways’ third-quarter business travel volume reached 64 percent of 2019 levels and revenue 75 percent, Iberia was at 86 percent and 96 percent, respectively, in Q3. Aer Lingus was at 60 percent business travel volume recovery and 72 percent revenue compared with 2019, he said.
“We are pleased that business volume for BA … has increased 10 points from the level we saw at the end of July,” Gallego said.
IAG Q3 Performance
IAG reported more than €8.6 billion in third-quarter revenue, up about 18 percent year over year. Passenger revenue increased 20.5 percent to €7.7 billion. IAG reported a third-quarter operating profit of about €1.23 billion, up from €853 billion in the second quarter of 2022.
Third-quarter capacity, as measures in available seat kilometers, increased nearly 18 percent year over year and has reached 95.6 percent of 2019 levels, and officials projected full-year capacity would reach 96 percent of its pre-pandemic level.
Fourth-quarter bookings appear “as expected,” according to the company.
