British Airways (BA) has announced a 29% increase in operating profit for the last three months of 2006, reporting increased demand for business and first class travel over the period.

Despite this, BA says it is still concerned that increased fuel costs will impact negatively on its profit margin targets. BA, which is Europe?s third-largest airline said that operating profit for the last three months of 2006 reached ?175m ($308m), compared with ?136m ($240m) a year ago. Turnover rose 8.8% to ?2.13bn ($3.7bn).
The better trends continued through January, with BA revealing a 3.3% rise in passenger traffic.