British Airways was established in 1974 as a merger of four airline corporations, namely British Overseas Airways Corporation, British European Airways, Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines. Currently, British Airways Plc is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, with its headquarters situated in London, near its primary hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline company provides services to destinations worldwide and continues to enhance its services through code share agreements with various companies, including American Airlines and Qatar Airlines. British Airways also has a subsidiary, BA CityFlyer, which was founded in 1991 and operates from London City Airport and Southampton Airport.
Financial accounts after the COVID-19
The global aviation industry was adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and British Airways was no exception. During the coronavirus pandemic, the financial performance of the airline was greatly impacted. But in the years that followed, the company’s operations improved and some even reached new highs. In particular, British Airways generated over 14.3 billion British pounds of
revenue in 2023. This represented an increase of 30 percent in comparison to the previous year, marking the highest level recorded since 2010. The pandemic had a negative impact on
the subsidiary's revenue, which fell to just 52.1 million British pounds in 2021, six times lower than the pre-pandemic year's total.
Furthermore, during the pandemic,
passenger traffic was also severely affected due to disrupted airport operations. Between 2019 and 2020, British Airways lost 74 percent of its passengers. Nevertheless, similar to the revenue, the figures experienced a rebound in 2022 and amounted to approximately 39 million passengers in 2023. However, this time, the annual number of passengers uplifted remained lower than the figure prior to the pandemic.
Competitors
The main competitor in the UK for British Airways is the low-cost airline EasyJet, which rose from being the second
largest airline by passenger numbers in the UK to the largest in 2021 and held the top spot in 2022 and 2023. Nevertheless, British Airways persists as
the most well-known airline in the United Kingdom. According to a survey conducted in 2023, 94 percent of survey participants were very familiar with British Airways. This was 92 and 89 percent for EasyJet, and Ryanair which were two low-cost carriers that are the biggest competitors of British Airways.
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