The number of passengers flying business and first class with British Airways (BA) fell 12.1 per cent in December.

So-called ‘premium’ traffic is particularly important to the airline as it represents the seats where profit margins are highest.

Many of the airline’s top customers are thought to be banks, which have been among the worst hit by the financial crisis, and thus cutting back on expenses, particularly travel budgets. For instance Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, was understood to be a large customer before its collapsed last September and UBS is believed to have banned its bankers from travelling business class on flights of less than five hours.

Overall traffic, which is measured by the number of passengers and how far they travelled, fell 3.4 per cent in December compared to last year, with non-premium down 1.7 per cent, helped by travel over the Christmas period. Cargo traffic was down 14.3 per cent. Passenger load factor, a measure of how full British Airway’s planes were, fell 0.2 per cent on the year to 76.7 per cent.

The airline said current trading conditions and its financial guidance for the year remained unchanged. However, the trend of weakening premium passenger numbers has clearly worsened, following a 10.8 per cent fall in November.

British Airways has maintained its strategy of holding firm on its more expensive fares amid the downturn, despite discounting by a number of its competitors, as it tries to protect profit margins.

Instead the airline is trying to cope with the fall in demand by cutting management jobs and seeking mergers with rival carriers such as Qantas. However, these talks have now finished.

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