British Airways has announced that passenger numbers in May fell by 11.5 per cent compared to a year ago. The airline is mainly blaming strikes by cabin crew for the fall in performance. BA has also reported a drop in business and first-class travel of 6.5 per cent. The premium sector is the most profitable part of the carrier’s passenger business.

Meanwhile, rival airline Air France-KLM has announced that its year-on-year passenger numbers for May were up by 4.3 per cent. The airline also said that traffic was increasing and that an overall improvement in economic conditions was the main reason.

Even though it experienced some disruption at the beginning of the month, due to the volcanic cloud which caused some airport closures, Ryanair claims that it saw a 17 per cent increase in traffic throughout May. Load factors for both Ryanair and Air France-KLM also improved.

British Airways has taken the improvement of performance by rival airlines to be a positive sign. Group treasurer at BA, George Stinnes, said that if the airline had not been trying to cope with ongoing industrial action by its cabin crew, it too would expect to see improvements in traffic and an increase in capacity of around 1.5 percent. He added that things looked like they were heading in the right direction.

British Airways is losing in the region of £7 million a day during the cabin crew strikes, and the next set of walk outs is set to start on June 5, just ahead of the World Cup in South Africa.