BA World Cargo’s revenue down 3.1%

BA World CargoÆs revenue down 3.1% British Airways World Cargo reported commercial revenues of '618 million ($1.2 billion) in the last financial year ended March 31, a drop of 3.1 percent in the previous period.
   The airline's volume fell by 4.7 percent to 4.7 million cargo ton kilometers with capacity, measured in available cargo ton kilometers, down 0.5 percent compared to last year.
   'This has been a challenging year for the business,' said Sean Doyle, BA World Cargo's financial controller, in a statement. 'Operational difficulties including security disruptions over the summer and fog in December, combined with soft market conditions, particularly out of the UK, Japan and Europe, have certainly had an impact on these results. However, in spite of difficult circumstances we have succeeded in growing our yield through optimizing our product and destination mix.
   'From a regional perspective, demand out of the Americas and Greater
China has held up well and traffic remains strong from the Middle East.
Higher yielding areas such as Asia Pacific have also delivered a steady, if unspectacular, performance,' said Doyle.
   Meanwhile, parent company British Airways said it has set aside '350 million ($689.5 million) to settle claims related to allegations of price fixing fuel surcharges for cargo and long-haul passenger services.
   'British Airways has a long-standing, clear and comprehensive competition compliance policy. This policy requires all staff to comply with the law at all times. It has become apparent that there have been breaches of this policy in relation to discussions about these surcharges with competitors,' the airline said in a statement.