Iberia will return to full pre-pandemic capacity for the upcoming winter season, as it resumes flights to Latin America, the USA and increases deployment on its short and medium haul network. The airline says it plans to resume its flights to Caracas and Rio de Janeiro, its last two destinations in Latin America still pending after the pandemic, in November, as part of its winter schedule, which begins on 30 October until 28 March 2023. The airline will offer thrice-weekly flights on each of the routes, the IAG-owned Spanish airline says. In the USA, Iberia will extend the operation of the flights with Dallas that it had initially launched only for the summer season and will increase frequency of flights to New York and Miami. In Europe, it will offer its route to Funchal all winter with three weekly frequencies and increase capacity in several destinations such as Milan, Rome, Geneva, Brussels and Bordeaux. In the domestic market, Iberia has reinforced its commitment to the cities with the highest corporate traffic such as Barcelona and Bilbao. It will recover this winter all its operations on the Madrid-Barcelona Air Shuttle prior to the pandemic with 87 weekly frequencies and up to 15 daily flights in each direction. It will also increase frequencies to Bilbao, La Coruna, Asturias and Vigo, among others. Subsidiary Iberia Express has scheduled a capacity growth of 49% in the Balearic Islands and 28% in the Canary Islands.

IAG made an operating profit of €293 million ($299 million) in the second quarter, swinging from a €967 million operating loss in the same period of 2021. Revenue increased to €5.92 billion from €1.24 billion, the European airline group says. A net profit of €133 million compares with a loss of €981 million a year ago. Passenger unit revenue in the second quarter was up 6.4% compared with 2019, "helping to offset lower capacity and higher fuel costs, driven by passenger revenue yield 10.6% higher than in 2019", the group notes. "In the second quarter, we returned to profit for the first time since the start of the pandemic following a strong recovery in demand across all our airlines," states IAG chief executive Luis Gallego. "This result supports our outlook for a full year operating profit." Capacity, as measured in available seat-kilometres, was boosted 257%, while revenue passenger-kilometres grew 463%. Load factor gained 30 percentage points to 82%. "Premium leisure remains strong while business travel continues a steady recovery in all airlines. Iberia and Vueling were the best-performing carriers within the group. The Spanish domestic market and routes to Latin America continued to lead the recovery with demand exceeding 2019 levels last month," Gallego adds. For the six months ended 30 June, the group reported an operating loss of €438 million, narrowing a loss of €2.04 billion in the first half of 2021. Total revenue was up 323% to €9.35 billion, while the net loss reduced to €654 million from €2.05 billion. At 30 June, the group had total liquidity of €13.5 billion, comprising cash and interest-bearing deposits of €9.2 billion, €3.2 billion of committed and undrawn general facilities, and a further €1.1 billion of committed and undrawn aircraft-specific facilities. A total of 13 Airbus aircraft were delivered in the first half: four Airbus A350-1000s, three A350-900s, five A320neos and one A321neo. "In line with our net-zero commitment by 2050, we have announced the addition of 50 new Boeing 737s and 59 Airbus A320neo-family aircraft subject to shareholder approval. These modern, fuel-efficient planes will see us over 60% through our short-haul fleet replacement by 2028," Gallego states.

IAG-owned British Airways was largely unaffected by the imposition of a daily passenger cap at Heathrow airport because the airline had already pre-planned flight cancellations during the summer, group chief executive Luis Gallego has explained. Briefing analysts on 29 July, Gallego said BA's most important tool for avoiding disruption this summer was its strategy of cancelling services well ahead of their scheduled operation to avoid last-minute changes. BA cancelled 16,000 flights over the period May to October, representing 10% of its schedules services and of which 85% were short-haul and 15% long-haul. Amid a second "pre-emptive reduction" phase in June, 1,900 flights were cancelled – mainly in July – representing 1% of the total, says Gallego. An airport slot amnesty programme was implemented by the UK Department for Transport until end-October as a result of the 70:30 usage rule "not working and pressure from HAL security and ground handling staff shortages", and this allowed BA to cancel a further 7% of flights, according to a slide prepared for the call. As a result of these moves, when Heathrow introduced a 100,000-passenger daily cap on 12 July, BA was required to cancel only 0.5% of flights to comply. All told, the UK carrier cancelled some 18.5% of planned operations between May and October. BA sought to cancel long-haul some services on routes with multiple frequencies, such as to Miami. In that case, the daily service was transferred to Oneworld partner American Airlines. BA also delayed the start of Hong Kong and Tokyo services pending the easing of Covid-related restrictions in those jurisdictions. Gallego says IAG carriers still experienced last-minute cancellations as a result of other issues such as ATC disruption and technical issues. A "competitors' operational performance" comparison for cancellations in the second quarter prepared by IAG shows that BA cancelled 2.9% of its flights within 48h of scheduled departure. This compares with a 2.2% average for competitors, Gallego says. However, other IAG carriers bucked the trend: Aer Lingus cancelled only 1% of flights in the period, and Iberia and Vueling virtually none, he adds. Gallego says the aviation industry continued to face "unprecedented" challenges scaling up of operations this summer. He describes the problems faced by London Heathrow as being the result of a "combination of actors in the ecosystem" and says these players, including BA, need to co-ordinate well to well "give resilience to the system". "We hope to improve by the end of the year," he adds. BA chief executive Sean Doyle notes that the airline has brought 4,000 people into business, of whom 3,300 are in operational roles. Some 7,000 new staff need to be in place by year-end, says Doyle. "The run rate that we have today is very much in line with the recovery we see in the business by year-end. The rate we are bringing people in is improving every month," he observes. Heathrow's performance depends on recruitment amid a tight labour market, Doyle notes, and even when security personnel are added, the speed of processing passengers and bags and getting trucks through control posts "isn't as quick" due to an "experience lag". Doyle also cites the effect of wider constraints in third-party ground handlers on operations, saying: "We watch closely how the wider Heathrow ecosystem in terms of supply chain is performing". But he says attrition rates are falling, recruitment is "picking up", and operations at the airport are stabilising. Commenting on recent pay rises for BA staff agreed with the GMB and Unite unions, Gallego says the airline will need to rely on continued strong revenues and staff efficiencies to balance the rise in costs faced by the business.