FILE PHOTO: Chennai airport.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Air traffic strikes bigger threat than fuel prices in 2018, IAG says<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

S<\/span>ydney –<\/strong> Air traffic control strikes are more of a threat to European airlines this year than a rise in fuel prices, the chief executive of British Airways-owner IAG\u00a0said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Global airlines have slashed their forecast for industry profits in 2018 due to a spike in fuel costs, but in Europe, there is an additional threat to profits from the cost of flight cancellations associated with air traffic control (ATC) strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a European context, the thing most impacting is ATC strikes and the ongoing ATC environment which is a mess,\u201d IAG CEO Willie Walsh told the CAPA-Centre for aviation summit in Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s destroying traffic through Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

European airline industry body A4E has estimated the economic cost of ATC strikes in the European Union was 13.4 billion euros ($15.7 billion) between 2010 and 2017.<\/p>\n

Ryanair, a rival European airline, said earlier on Tuesday that ATC strikes and shortages caused it to cancel 1,100 flights in May compared with 43 in the same month last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a significant issue. We thought it would get better in 2018 but it\u2019s getting worse,\u201d Walsh said.<\/p>\n

France has been a particular problem area for airlines, where public sector workers have staged a series of protests over the government\u2019s economic reforms.<\/p>\n

IAG\u2019S airlines, which also include Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, are having to spend more on fuel to travel via alternative routes to bypass French airspace, Walsh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe end up paying compensation to customers. It\u2019s completely outside our control,\u201d he added, saying millions of passengers were affected and it cost airlines tens of millions of pounds.<\/p>\n

Walsh said that because IAG was hedged for this year, he wasn\u2019t as concerned about fuel prices for 2018, but the higher prices would be a challenge for 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s much higher than we expected it to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said rising fuel costs will hurt industry profits, cutting forecasts by 12 percent. IATA expects an average oil price of $70 a barrel this year, up from $54.90 last year and its previous prediction of $60.<\/p>\n

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• With reports from Reuters<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

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  FILE PHOTO: Chennai airport.\u00a0\u00a0Air traffic strikes bigger threat than fuel prices in 2018, IAG says Sydney – Air traffic control strikes are more of a threat to European airlines this year than a rise in fuel prices, the chief executive of British Airways-owner IAG\u00a0said on Tuesday. Global airlines have slashed their forecast for industry profits…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11333,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330\/revisions\/11333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}