Q3 Revenue results October - December 2006 (02/02/2007)

British Airways World Cargo has reported commercial revenues (flown revenues plus fuel surcharges) of £161.6 million for the third quarter, a decrease of 8.5 percent against the same period last year. After the impact of exchange rate movements is removed, commercial revenues were down by 3.8 percent.

Overall yields (revenue per cargo tonne kilometre (CTK)), are up by 2.9 percent excluding exchange effects. Volumes have fallen by 8.8 percent compared to the same period last year, to 1,208 million CTKs. Cargo capacity, measured in available tonne kilometres (ATKs), has decreased by 4.3 percent compared to last year.

Sean Doyle, financial director, comments: "This last quarter has been challenging for BA World Cargo. Demand for general freight in the UK and Japanese markets has continued to soften. Intense competition in the Indian market has also put pressure on yields. However, demand from North America, Latin America and the Caribbean has been strong, and performance in North and West Africa has been particularly encouraging. From a European perspective we have seen improvements in France, the Eastern Mediterranean markets and Benelux, largely down to increased perishables traffic."

Chris Bosworth, general manager commercial development, comments: "This has been a difficult quarter for BA World Cargo with a number of external factors affecting our performance. However, in spite of these challenging circumstances, we have succeeded in increasing yield - a positive reflection of our long term strategy of growing our premium offering.

"The security disruption over the summer certainly impacted the business' performance and as a result of new security measures we have seen a decrease in bellyhold cargo capacity with more checked-in passenger baggage. The Heathrow fog which hit at the peak time of mid December has also had a notable impact on these results.

"Going forward, we continue to focus on delivering premium products to differentiate our customer offering and increase our profitable volumes. We have also responded to increased customer demand across Europe and recently added significant capacity to our shorthaul freighter operation, which now delivers 45 weekly wide-body services across 11 European destinations."