British Airways owner re-routes jets to avoid Russia
IAG, owner of British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia, is re-routing aircraft to avoid flying over Russian airspace, its boss said Friday, amid international outcry over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Chief executive Luis Gallego told reporters in a call that IAG was re-routing flights so as not to fly over Russia, and cancelled a Moscow-bound flight.
The news came one day after the UK government banned Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot from flying over Britain as part of a series of sanctions against Russia following its invasion of neighbour Ukraine.
Moscow in retaliation on Friday banned all UK-linked planes, including transiting flights, from its airspace.
"We took the decision to cancel the flight... to Moscow today," Gallego told a conference call for the group's annual results on Friday.
The airline conglomerate was also re-routing scheduled flights to Singapore and Dubai so that they do "not fly over Russia", he added.
Separately, IAG revealed Friday that net losses more than halved last year with recovery underway as Covid travel curbs were lifted.
However, it was also monitoring the Ukraine crisis that has shuttered airspace for civilian aircraft in the region.
"The impact of this crisis we are still monitoring," Gallego noted.
He added that flights to the East were "very reduced" as a result.
"All the flights that we are doing now we can re-route, so we can maintain the schedule."
IAG revealed that its loss after tax narrowed sharply to 2.9 billion euros ($3.3 billion) last year.
That contrasted with a record 6.9 billion euros in 2020, when the coronavirus emergency paralysed air travel and grounded flights worldwide.
- 'Strong recovery' -
Passenger capacity last year was 36 percent of its pre-pandemic 2019 level, but this reached 58 percent in the fourth quarter.
"The easing of government-imposed travel restrictions as the year progressed resulted in improving travel demand, in particular following the opening of the US border to foreign travellers" in early November, IAG said.
Total revenues climbed eight percent to almost 8.5 billion euros.
"We are confident that a strong recovery is underway," said Gallego.
IAG noted also that the Omicron Covid variant, which emerged late last year, only had a "negative short term impact" on its performance.
Yet IAG expected a "significant" operating loss for the current first quarter, and cited seasonally weak demand, ongoing Omicron uncertainty, and rising costs as capacity is ramped back up.
The group then anticipates a return to profitability in the second quarter, but sounded a cautious note over this outlook.
"This assumes no further setbacks related to Covid-19 and government-imposed travel restrictions or material impact from recent geopolitical developments," it cautioned.
IAG aims this year to return to 85 percent of its pre-pandemic passenger capacity.
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