British Airways 300,000 passengers down after strike

Cabin crew strikes left their mark on British Airways' passenger numbers last months, official statistics showed today.

The airline suffered a 14.6% reduction on March 2009, carrying 2.3 million passengers compared with 2.6 million a year ago.

BA attributed half of the decline to winter capacity reductions and half to Unite union's strikes, in which cabin crew walked out from March 20-22 and March 27-30.

The decline was most marked in the Asia Pacific sector, which was down 25.3% compared with March 2009. Domestic and European traffic fell 18.6%, while Africa and Middle East flight passenger numbers were down 10.3% and traffic to North and South America was down 3.7%.

The airline said the total impact of the strike action last month was estimated to be £40 million to £45 million. BA planes flew 74.7% full last month - an increase of 2% on the March 2009.

BA said that over the first strike weekend it operated 78% of its long-haul and 50% of short-haul flights, with the figures rising to 83% and 67% over the second strike.

BA's chairman and head of investor relations, George Stinnes, said: "We want to get this dispute settled as quickly as possible. Willie [BA chief executive] has made it clear that he is available [for talks].

"The strike has been having a decreasing impact. If there were to be another period of disruption, then given the trend of the last two strike periods, we would expect a pretty substantial programme to be flown.

"It's certainly not clear that there has been damage to the brand."