"Skipness",
I was in a bit of a hurry yesterday, hence the "back of envelope" comment. Today I have been able to look more closely at the data.
The 1998 data below come from "Airline Business" (via flightglobal.com), whilst those for 2008 come from IATA's "World Air Transport Statistics", 53rd edition.
Change in passenger-kms 1998-2008:
British Airways -8.1%
Air France (excluding KLM) +76.9%
Lufthansa +75.6%
[BA 125,951 to 115,734; Air France 74,542 to 131,845; Lufthansa 71,897 to 126,267 - all figures millions.]
I found BA's relative decline shocking and wondered initially if perhaps the data for the two years lack comparability. For 1998 they are for "revenue passenger-kms" and for 2008 "scheduled passenger-kms flown". I assume the 1998 data exclude those flying for "free" (such as airline staff and those redeeming frequent flyer miles) whilst the 2008 data exclude charter operations but otherwise seem to measure the same thing. Does anyone have greater methodological insight than I?
I have not looked at other years; presumably the picture would be different had I done so. I think 1998 may have been a particularly good year for BA. In that year it was fourth in the world in passenger-km terms, behind United, American and Delta.
Whichever way you look at it, BA has been in decline for years whilst comparable European carriers have been growing. I think that to some extent this was due to the way BA responded to its view that Heathrow was its core and the perception that Heathrow could not accommodate growth (even with T5, BA will need to use T3). The aim, it seems to me, was to increase the proportion of longhaul "premium" seats at the expense of economy (look at how few Traveler seats there are in a four-class 777, for example).
The current collapse of "premium" travel has left BA scrambling to attract economy class travellers but, if what I read is true, overbooking and the lack of World Traveller seats has led to an unusually large number of involuntary upgrades.