BA owner’s profits rise by 20% despite drop in passenger numbers last year

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British Airways’ owner, International Airlines Group, has announced a sharp rise in annual profits to almost £4bn despite a slight fall in passenger numbers in 2025.Pre-tax profits across IAG increased by 20% to €4.5bn (£3.9bn), with record operating profits on margins of more than 15% at BA and its sister airline Iberia.The group’s chief executive, Luis Gallego, said the lucrative transatlantic market, also served by IAG’s Aer Lingus and Level airlines, remained robust, after warnings of softening demand in the autumn.

Passenger numbers fell 0,4% overall but Gallego told an investor call that premium leisure bookings on the North American routes for 2026 were doing “very well”,BA, the main contributor to IAG’s profits, operates about half of all flights out of Heathrow,Gallego issued a warning over Heathrow’s third runway plans, which have been backed by the government and are expected to cost a total of £49bn with associated expansion costs,He said IAG “supports this commitment to growth but the cost must be far lower to ensure that Heathrow remains globally competitive”.

In comments to investors, Gallego added: “We need to look at the facts and the facts are that Heathrow is the most expensive airport in the world.You need to pay two or three times more than what you have to pay in other big European hubs.We think that if that plan goes ahead, the passengers are going to pay double of what they are paying today.“So we have done our internal analysis of the maximum level of investment we think, with the right phasing, we can afford in order to have flat fares for the passenger.And £30bn is our number.

We can be wrong, but that’s a reduction of 40% in the investment.”Gallego said if Heathrow ensured it capped charges, and did not increase what airlines were already paying, then IAG would “support any project”.For IAG, he said 2025 had been “another year of exceptional performance”, with improved punctuality and customer satisfaction.He added: “Looking ahead, demand is strong, with research and market data indicating that travellers in our core markets within Europe and across the Atlantic remain committed to flying the same or more in 2026.”IAG expects to raise its capacity by about 3% this year.

The group achieved record operating profits as well as growing revenue by 3.5% and would be passing returns to shareholders, with a total dividend for 2025 of €448m, Gallego said.IAG announced a further €1.5bn (£1.1bn) share buyback, after a €1bn buyback announced in February.

IAG, which also owns the Spanish airline Vueling, carried a total of 121.6 million passengers in 2025, down 0.4% from 122 million in 2024.Despite the strong financial results, IAG’s share price slipped about 6% on Friday.Gallego said the dip in passenger numbers was affecting all airlines and was partly because of concerns about tensions between the US and Iran – which have grown, with the US on Friday saying non-essential staff at its embassy in Israel could leave – and potential for higher fuel prices.

Andrew Lobbenberg, an analyst at Barclays, said US-Iran tensions were an immediate cause, but also a sense that IAG’s post-Covid boom may have peaked, with the company performing above its cyclical financial targets,He added that an investment strategy laid out in a presentation to analysts showed “large-scale, climbing capital expenditure plans ahead, right out to the 2030s,While this supports badly needed fleet renewal, it means that future cash generation and hence shareholder returns are likely to fall,”
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Doom Bar maker Sharp’s Brewery in Cornwall to be closed by US owner

The Cornish brewery that makes Doom Bar ale is to be closed by its US owner, throwing the popular beer brand’s future into doubt and putting about 200 jobs at risk.The drinks company Molson Coors said it plans to shut Sharp’s Brewery in Rock, along with its national call centre in Wales, saying it was “no longer financially sustainable”.The Chicago-based company, which bought Sharp’s 15 years ago, said it was planning to close the site by the end of this year but it “remains committed” to Sharp’s beer brands.Sharp was founded in 1994, and most its sales come from Doom Bar, which is among the bestselling cask ales in the UK, and was named after a notoriously dangerous sandbank in Cornwall’s Camel estuary. Sharp’s also makes Atlantic and Twin Coast pale ales

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Table for one: is eating lunch at work on your own a bad thing?

Name: The lonely lunch.Age: Recent, but growing.Appearance: Très misérable.Why are you talking French to me? Have you gone all pretentious? I am talking French to you because this is a French problem.It is? Oui

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How to use on-the-turn milk to make an Italian classic – recipe

According to the Sustainable Food Trust, “the milk from 40,000 cows (300,000 tonnes) is tipped down the kitchen sink each year – a real slap in the face for the farmer”. Even though some supermarkets have now swapped use-by for best-before dates on their milk, those dates can still be confusing, so always do the sniff test before binning it: even if it’s a little sour, you can still cook with it.The Food Standards Agency advises that food with a best-before date can usually be tested using sensory cues such as the sniff test. And what better way to use up spent or sour milk than maiale al latte, or milk-braised pork, for which pork is slowly braised in milk and flavoured with a few aromatics until tender. The milk splits and forms large curds that thicken and caramelise the sauce, so creating a creamy rich dressing for the meat

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Nadiya Hussain on food, faith and finding her voice: ‘I get paid less than the white version of me’

In a food world where the trend is for protein and weight-loss injections and sugar is the supervillain, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts seems somewhat contrary. There are golden syrup dumplings. There is a chapter devoted to deep frying, with cheese balls and ingenious deep-fried cannelloni.“If I could write an entire book on deep frying, I absolutely would,” says Hussain with a laugh. “This is how I cook, this is how I eat, this is how I show love to my family

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Should you sanitise your strawberries? Experts on the right way to wash fruit and vegetables

You know the cost-of-living crisis is biting when videos of influencers unpacking their grocery “hauls” are viral on TikTok. Chewing through millions of views, fruit and vegetables are aesthetically plopped into a sink filled with water, piece by piece. “Sanitising” products are then added, ranging from the fizz of baking soda and vinegar to specialised vegetable soaps (“Amazon link in my bio!”). There are even expensive electronic purifiers, which shake, shimmy and bubble away in the basin, supposedly removing any nasties.But is ASMR deep-cleaning your fresh produce really necessary? And is it all too late for those of us who can barely remember to rinse our pears?For Queensland’s Rebecca Scurr, who shares what it’s like to “sell fruit for a living” to her 26,000 TikTok followers, fruit-washing videos make her “cringe so much”

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Do you really need to chill cookie dough? | Kitchen Aide

Does chilling cookie dough really make for a better result?Emily, by email “It all depends on what kind of cookie it is,” says Guardian baker Helen Goh. “Let’s say it’s a cookie that you need to stamp out – the dough needs to be firm enough to roll it, but not so firm that you can’t.” That said, the question of whether to fridge or not to fridge is probably most prevalent in the chocolate chip cookie sphere. “There’s a perceived wisdom that chilling helps the dough develop the flavour and caramelisation,” Goh says, “but, to be honest, it also makes the dough a little easier to roll and ensures it bakes evenly, which is worth far more than that slight improvement in flavour.”Recommended chilling times vary from 30 minutes to overnight, although Goh finds the latter results in a “cakey” cookie: “I’m a real Goldilocks, so I like crisp at the edges with a chewy centre