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IAG profit up 8.6pc to US$530 million as revenue declines 6.6pc

IAG, owners of Iberian and British Airways and now Aer Lingus, posted, an 8.6 per cent year-on-year profit increase in 2016 to EUR500 million (US$530 million), drawn on revenues of EUR1.02 billion, down 6.6 per cent.

"These are resilient results in the face of challenging market conditions, said CEO Drew Crawley.

"Growing supply from freighter and new generation passenger fleets have continued to outstrip demand for general freight," he said.

"Our focus on aggressive cost management combined with premium product growth has enabled us to offset some yield pressure and grow our revenue share of the market this year," Mr Crawley said.

He described start of 2016 as "robust", but the second and third quarter suffered from diminishing demand. The final peak months of the year brought improvement, driven by stronger consumer sales in December and last minute e-commerce orders.

"The integration of Aer Lingus into IAG has added further breadth to our network as well as opening new markets to Irish industries such as the growing pharmaceutical sector.

"We have also continued to invest to provide our customers with a strong network offering, and throughout 2016, IAG Cargo has launched several important destinations: Lima, San Juan, San Jose (California), San Jose (Costa Rica) and Tehran; and announced the launch of Santiago, New Orleans, Fort Lauderdale and Oakland for 2017, providing our customers with new options for shipping goods into key markets," said Mr Crawley.

IAG Cargo is the single business created following the merger of British Airways World Cargo and Iberia Cargo in April 2011. Following the integration of additional airlines into the business, including Aer Lingus, Vueling and bmi, IAG Cargo now covers a network of over 350 destinations.

In 2016 IAG Cargo had a combined workforce 2,470 covering a global network of 350 destinations.

Its parent company, International Airlines Group, is one of the world's largest airline groups with 548 aircraft. It is the third largest group in Europe and the sixth largest in the world, based on revenue.