The Winners and Losers of Europe’s 2024 Airline Battle
Photo Credit: Heathrow Airport, British Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner Heathrow Airports Limited / Heathrow Airports Limited
Skift Take
It’s a fascinating tale of three huge airline groups. Europe’s leading network carriers each experienced a very different 2024.
As we discussed earlier this week, there is a spectrum of performance between Europe’s three leading low-cost carriers. However, these variations aren’t unique to Ryanair, EasyJet, and Wizz Air. We see exactly the same disparity between the three major network carrier groups.
In a moment, we’ll examine the fortunes of Air France-KLM and the Lufthansa Group, but first let’s take a closer look at IAG.
The parent company of flag carriers British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus was easily the strongest performer in 2024. It reported a third quarter profit after tax of €1.43 billion ($1.49bn), a 16.6% increase year on year. Profit for nine months to the end of September was €2.34 billion, up 8.7% over the same period in 2023.
What is IAG's Secret Sauce?The core reason for IAG’s strong results is its heavy exposure to the buoyant North Atlantic market. For context, over half of the company’s long-haul capacity was in the North Atlan
