Avios facts and figures from the 2024 IAG results

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• Alan says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:00

  For me the interesting bit here is 35 Billion Avios were ‘banked’. That’s what the equivalent of 219k business returns to US?

  Maybe higher Avios holdings means they have cash which they then make money on lending to to other parts of the group or just in savings accounts? So maybe higher balances helps to improve profits.

  • BBbetter says:

    1 Mar1 March 08:12

    They sell avios for cash use that to fund their businesses. It’s a cheap source of funding. Profits are mainly impacted when the avios are used or they expire.
    But this year, many shareholders who are also travelers are miffed that more money is being returned back to shareholders through dividends or buybacks instead of being invested back.

• Steve says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:09

  Those figures surely can’t be right about how many avios are banked; that figure is huge, do they say how many active avios collectors there are to divide it out across the customer base roughly? Divided out that could be 10000 avios each which isn’t a big sum

• chris w says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:16

  Does BA have a 10 and 20 year plan? They don’t want a third runway at Heathrow so, save for upgrading to larger planes there surely won’t be much growth there, if the second runway at Gatwick doesn’t happen its a similar story there.

  Whats on the horizon? Some cuts to passenger experience (I hear Champagne in Club Europe could be next) and a few odd extra third-tier cities in the US?

  Do they not look with envy at how massive and successful and respected Qatar Airways has become and want to do the same?

  • G says:

    1 Mar1 March 08:25

    Nope. Like any good British firm they’re happy to settle for mediocrity because the economy of scale just isnt there in the UK anymore.

    • Callum says:

      1 Mar1 March 08:55

      Qatar Airways are “massive and respected” because they’re run by a Middle Eastern dictatorship with limited rules and regulations and unlimited capacity, located right in the middle of huge air traffic routes where direct flights can be particularly long, so a hub and spoke model works perfectly.

      They could want to be the new Qatar Airways all they want, it’s physically impossible.

  • JDB says:

    1 Mar1 March 08:52

    BA does very much want a third runway. The issue is that they don’t want to pay for it! Even without a third runway, HAL will be spending huge amounts on expanding T2 & T5 but BA effectively gets to see less of the benefit vs T2 airlines so it’s quite messy.

    It’s quite an achievement to have created a regulatory system (and it’s that that BA wants to change) that doesn’t work for airlines, the airport, passengers or the regulator who has to apply the rules.

    • RC says:

      1 Mar1 March 09:29

      That’s a questionable assertion.
      BA claim to be on board, but they use every trick possible to delay and prevaricate.
      Why? Because while a poorer performance than Iberia in aggregate for the last 3 years, BA knows it high prices and mediocre product (at best) would face huge margin pressure if it had to compete with new entrants or others with extra slots at Heathrow..

    • Richie says:

      1 Mar1 March 09:51

      re @JDB “…It’s quite an achievement to have created a regulatory system (and it’s that that BA wants to change) that doesn’t work for airlines, the airport, passengers or the regulator who has to apply the rules…” Which former Prime Minister(s) are to blame for this?

    • Phillip says:

      1 Mar1 March 18:57

      I agree that BA very much want the third runway. Paying for it? If by that they mean make less of a profit because by passing the charges to customers their profit is slightly reduced, then fair enough. Interesting how they don’t publish openly how much they make on “charges” from redemptions. Where there’s a will…. But ultimately, right now they are grumbling because they are in no place to expand their fleet while they wait for new aircraft and deal with issues of existing aircraft. It will take them the rest of the decade to even position themselves in a place where they can further grow their fleet to take advantage of the expansion!

• John says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:18

  You could spend £11k at The Wine Flyer if you were catering for a large event

  • JDB says:

    1 Mar1 March 08:52

    Ideally an event one wasn’t attending oneself.

• kevin86 says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:33

  Excellent results for which they should be applauded 👏

• Garethgerry says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:57

  20 million collected 16 million redeemed every hour, 4 million an hour unspent. 35 billion years not used. Circa 55000 cw return to Australia

  • Saltrams says:

    8 Mar8 March 08:43

    That 55000 contains a comparatively meagre few of my Avios, unspent because there is never availability (unless I want to stay up until midnight calling booking lines to get a flight nearly a year in advance and then worry about getting available seats to return again).

• patrick C says:

  1 Mar1 March 09:07

  Don’t forget that avios earned are a liability to avios group.
  As such when they expire they get to.make extra profits…
  Fundamentally avios is an unregulated bank providing the group profitable working capital

• Joe says:

  1 Mar1 March 09:41

  Most interesting would be the redemption split by channel but doubt they would ever share this. Interestingly they call it micro non air burn in one of the slides.

  Also picked up the point on moving carib prem leisure to lhr (from lgw). I’m only really aware of bgi (and that happened in covid), so interested to see what else moves and whether they keep the differentiated hard product (less J old cs).

  Any thoughts/insights here?

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