LONDON, Oct 31 — London-listed airline giant IAG admitted today that recent historic strikes by British Airways pilots had hurt its performance in the third quarter.

Net profit sank nine per cent to €1 billion (RM4.7 billion) in the three months to the end of September from a year earlier, said IAG, which also owns Spanish carrier Iberia and Ireland’s Aer Lingus.

The London-listed company added in a results statement that it took a €155 million charge from the cost of major disruption including industrial action by BA pilots in September.

The group’s fuel bill also rose significantly in the reporting period.

"These are good underlying results. As we said in September, our performance has been affected by industrial action by pilots’ union BALPA and other disruption including threatened strikes by Heathrow airport employees,” said IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh.

"In addition, our fuel bill increased by €136 million during the quarter.”

BA grounded its entire UK fleet over two days, on September 9 and 10, when for the first time in its 100-year history pilots employed by the airline went on strike in a long-running dispute over pay.

Even though pilots represented by the BALPA union cancelled a third 24-hour stoppage that was due on September 27, BA was only able to revert to only a half-service that day having initially cancelled all scheduled UK flights. — AFP