07 October, British Airways said first- and business-class travel fell 8.6 percent last month as the credit crisis and economic slowdown led to job losses and tighter budgets in the City of London and on Wall Street.
Overall traffic declined 4.8 percent from a year earlier, the airline said. Load factor, a measure of seat occupancy, fell 4.3 percentage points, to 74 percent.
Premium traffic increased 2.2 percent in August. “Trading conditions continue to be challenging,” British Airways said. “Long-haul premium traffic has softened after the summer and forward bookings are being affected by the increased anxiety in financial markets and by the uncertain economic outlook.”
