Fewer people fly on snow-hit BA

BA has been hit by sterling's weakness

British Airways carried 10% fewer passengers in February because of the extreme weather conditions that brought much of the UK to a standstill.

Heavy snowfall caused "airport closures, runway restrictions and enforced diversions", the airline said.

As a result, 2.17 million passengers travelled on BA planes during February, compared with 2.41 million in the same month last year.

First-class and business-class traffic fell by more than 20%.

Premium-class services such as these have been particularly badly affected by the recession.

Flights to Asia Pacific were hardest hit, with passenger numbers down 19.3%.

The fall in passenger numbers was also affected by February having one trading day fewer this year, BA said.

For the financial year to date, which began in April 2008, total passenger numbers are down 3.9% compared with the previous year.

Earlier this month, BA announced a loss of �70m for the nine months to 31 December last year, largely due to the economic downturn and the weak pound.

For the same period in 2007, BA made a pre-tax profit of �816m.

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