British Airways and subsidiaries: number of passengers carried 2011-2022

British Airways was born out of four separate airlines in 1974, following efforts by the British government to establish a new British Airways Board and end an ongoing dispute between two of its predecessors in disagreement over airspace usage rights. In 2022, British Airways, including its subsidiaries, uplifted around 33 million passengers.

British Airways' performance during the coronavirus pandemic

The 2022 passenger numbers were substantially higher than the only 10 million passengers transported in 2021, due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the lowest value since the beginning of the reporting period in 2010, with the distance flown also echoing this development. For the second time in more than a decade, British Airways reported a net profit loss of nearly 1.65 billion British pounds in 2021. In 2022, the company posted a net profit of 61 million British pounds. Their revenue also dropped by more than 70 percent compared to 2019 levels to 3.7 billion British pounds in 2021 but subsequently recovered to 11 billion British pounds.

Who is leading in the UK?

British Airways was the second largest United Kingdom based airline by passenger numbers in 2022. British Airways was outranked by EasyJet, which had around 2.4 million passengers in 2022.