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British Airways profits soar
Despite the chaotic debut of London Heathrow's Terminal 5 and record fuel costs -- British Airways has still produced a big leap in profits. Annual pretax profit is up 45 percent to 883 million pounds helping BA pay out its first dividend to shareholders since 2001. The growth was driven by cost-cutting and rising business class seat sales. After the T5 fiasco which caused huge disruption to passengers, BA boss Willie Walsh has decided not to take his annual bonus. However, he insists those teething problems are well and truly history: SOUNDBITE: Willie Walsh, CEO, British Airrways: "Well since T5 opened, and that was a very disappointing first couple of days, 2.1 million people have flown through T5 and the vast majority of those people would have experienced a very good performance. The vast of majority of those people will have witnessed the true potential of Terminal Five and I get more letters from my customers now telling me about how pleased they are with T5 than I have ever received about anything in the past." However analysts remain cautious about the future for BA given oil's exuberance and global economic uncertainty. Based on current oil market conditions, BA says its fuel bill for this year would increase by around 1 billion pounds to over 3 billion pounds. That outlook did not prevent BA shares having a strong session. To the markets now and shares in Europe have traded close to four-month highs boosted by oil stocks. They've been buoyed by a rally in crude oil which has touched a new high. British Energy was a key climber after the UK's largest electricity producer received early stage takeover offers. And as the numbers indicate the FTSE Eurofirst 300 and the main stock markets in Europe all finished the trading week in a positive fashion.
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Added: May 16, 2008 |
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