British Airways, the UK flag carrier, flew 7.9 per cent fewer passengers last month following the chaotic opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and the continued slowdown in the US economy.

The number of economy passengers that BA flew in April was down 8.8 per cent, which the airline blamed on changes to the date of Easter school holidays. Overall, passenger numbers fell from 2.81 million in April last year to 2.59 million last month.

Premium passenger numbers rose 3.4 per cent during April, which is where BA makes the majority of its money, after recording a 4 per cent fall in premium traffic during March.

The airline’s sales in April were hit by problems moving into T5, which BA was forced to cancel more than 430 flights. The airline also lost about 20,000 bags. The troubled launch has already cost two BA directors their jobs — Gareth Kirkwood, the director of operations, and David Noyes, the director of customer services, left the company after a combined 45 years at the group.

Just days before their departure, Willie Walsh, the chief executive oft BA, appeared to be backing Mr Kirkwood and Mr Noyes over the debacle. He said: "If people want to assign blame for this it comes to me."

BA’s traffic figures show that its UK and European flights were the least full and these were the routes transferred to T5 at the end of March.

Aviation analysts believe that the T5 chaos encouraged passengers to book on rival airlines, which contributed to the large drop in April’s traffic. BA’s average load factor was 71.6 per cent.

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