IAG

Europe's big three legacy airline groups have all shaved back their capacity growth plans for 2026. High fuel prices are forcing a tighter focus on routes than have sufficient pricing power to be profitable in spite of the additional cost. Air France-KLM, IAG and Lufthansa Group each reported faster growth in fuel costs than in revenues in 1H2026, although healthy demand for air travel helped to soften the impact on profits. Their unit revenues were boosted by enforced capacity cuts at the Gulf hub airlines, driving more traffic into the Asia networks of the European groups. The durability of this factor over 2H2026 will be closely watched and will influenced by the pace and extent of capacity recovery by Gulf competitors. Either way, fuel prices are set to remain well above their levels of before the Iran conflict. Meanwhile, capacity growth in Europe as a whole is set to slow to just 1% in the latter weeks of 2026 (source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation/OAG), an illustration of the cauti

Ranked by narrowbody fleet numbers, Ryanair Group is out on its own as Europe's only top tier low cost airline (and as the biggest narrowbody fleet in Europe). Wizz Air Group can be bracketed with easyJet Group in the second tier of independent European LCC fleets, with Jet2.com, Pegasus Airlines and Norwegian forming tier three. The narrowbody low cost fleets of Europe's three leading legacy airline groups (Lufthansa Group, IAG and Air France-KLM) are similar in size to the third tier independent LCCs. Aggregate narrowbody fleet numbers from the CAPA Fleet Database at 11-May-2026 highlight the superior strength of Europe's six biggest independent LCCs versus the three leading legacy groups. The legacy big three have a total of 1,207 narrowbodies, of which 430 are with low cost brands and 208 narrowbody orders outstanding. The six LCCs have 1,625 narrowbodies and 999 on order. The six leading independent LCCs grew their share of Europe's total narrowbody fleet from 9% in 2005 to 29% in

British Airways, Iberia and Vueling all post improved first-quarter result, but Irish carrier’s losses almost double. IAG airline profitability was led by British Airways and Iberia during the first quarter, but Aer Lingus is evaluating its network plans for next year amid higher fuel costs and on the back of widened seasonal losses. In fact,… The post Aer Lingus lags IAG sister carriers in first quarter first appeared on FlightGlobal.

Despite continued strong demand and no concerns about fuel supplies, International Airlines Group (IAG) is slowing capacity growth for the