British Airways has reported a slow start to the peak holiday season, Europe's largest airline saying that June passenger traffic remained weak.
In an already soft market, BA said today that June was further hit by air traffic control strikes in continental Europe, tumbling stock markets, two public holidays and the World Cup soccer tournament, which kept people glued to television sets at home.
BA said passenger traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, dropped by 13.1 per cent in June compared with the same month a year earlier.
But the airline, which relies heavily on the transatlantic market for profits, said its load factor, which measures the average number of seats filled on its flights, rose 1.3 points to 69 per cent as it cut capacity by 12.7 per cent.
On flights to the Americas, BA said its passenger traffic was down 12.4 per cent in June year-on-year but there was some improvement in the number of passengers on Asian routes.