Cabin crew strike costs BA £21m
British Airways faces a bill of more than £20 million as a result of the three-day cabin crew strike.
The airline said the current best estimate is that the three-day industrial action will cost £7 million a day.
The "strong operational performance made possible by dedicated BA staff" has "significantly reduced" the financial impact of the disruption, BA said.
The details emerged ahead of the expected announcement of BA's timetable for the rest of the week today ahead of the second planned stoppage starting on Saturday.
The carrier said it operated 273 or 78% of its long haul flights and 442 or half of its short haul flights over the first two days of the strike as part of its contingency plans to cover the industrial action by members of the Unite union.
Seat factors were 68% in long haul and 69% in short haul. Club World seat factor was just under 60%.
The airline also operated 70 positioning flights, which in most cases carried cargo, to return passengers home with minimum disruption.
"We started the weekend with 82,573 bookings for the two days after our reservation teams had worked with our customers to reduce bookings (including accommodating some passengers for travel in the days leading up to the weekend) to reflect the smaller flying programme," BA said.
"In fact, over the two days we carried 86,262 passengers, due to late additional bookings."
Full year earnings expectations to March 31 remain "broadly unchanged".
Unite plans a further four-day walk-out from Saturday but has called for further talks to settle the dispute.
by Phil Davies
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