IAG traffic remains on upward trajectory

International Consolidated Airlines Group, better known as IAG and as the owner of British Airways and Iberia, continued to grow capacity and passenger traffic in October.

IAG's group notched up to 22,348 revenue passenger kilometres in October, a 4.4% increase in traffic in the same month last year, with premium traffic up by the same percentage.

Domestic traffic, which includes routes within UK, Spain, Ireland and Italy, showed the strongest growth at 12%, while Europe was weakest but still up 1.7%.

Group capacity was expanded 2.7% to 26,8003 available seat kilometres as declines in European and Asia Pacific routes were offset by strong domestic growth and good growth in all the regions.

Load factor — which measures how full flights are — increased by 1.4 percentage points to 83.4%, with the strongest growth coming from Europe, Latin American & Caribbean, and Asia Pacific routes.

North American load factor crept into positive territory in October but remains in the red for the year.

During October, IAG's Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus announced a fifth new route between Dublin and the US since its acquisition in 2015, adding Philadelphia to its roster.

Iberia also announced that it will start flying to San Francisco and Nicaraguan capital Managua from next year, and is seeking permission to increase capacity on flights from Madrid to Tokyo and Colombia's Bogota from next October.

The Spanish airline has asked Japanese authorities if it can increase services to five flights per weekly from the current three and requested permission from the Colombian authorities to increase to 10 weekly flights from the current seven.