05/11/2001

BA losses prompt doubts about future performance

British Airways has announced a 25 per cent fall in traffic in October, prompting speculation about the financial future of the company, which is currently Europe's largest airline.

While analysts’ predictions had placed the figure to be closer to 30 per cent, the news was enough to cause BA shares to plummet dramatically ahead of the official announcement, following Goldman Sachs’s branding of BA as a “market under-performer”. Merrill Lynch also joined in the pessimism, raising its pre-tax forecast for the company from £65 million to £775 million before exceptional items for the fiscal year.

The developments have prompted predictions that BA could be relegated from the FTSE index amid fears of continued poor economic performance from the airline.

While transatlantic air traffic is expected to stabilise in the wake of the events of September 11, it is thought that the week-on-week decline in the numbers of European air passengers is not set to level out at the same pace, despite BA’s optimistic predictions of a possible upturn in bookings by the end of the year.

Although shares in the company clawed back a little by Monday afternoon, BA's bottom line will be revealed on Tuesday when the company releases its financial results for the first half of the fiscal year. (CL)

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