Spanish airline Iberia said Friday it lost ¤16.4 million ($24.5 million) in the third quarter, compared to a profit of ¤30.4 million in the same period of 2008, as the global economic crisis sapped air travel, according to AP. Iberia, which announced Thursday a preliminary merger agreement with British Airways, said passenger traffic fell. It recorded 13.4 billion passenger kilometers traveled (PKT) in the third quarter, down 6.0 percent from the same period of 2008. The airline"s yield _ a measure of revenue taken in kilometers traveled per passenger _ dropped 13.8 percent for the third quarter and 13.4 percent for the first nine months. It said this was due in part to stiff price competition in most markets. Its load factor _ a measure of how much of its seat capacity is filled _ fell 1.1 percentage points to 82.1 percent, although Iberia said this is above the average for major European airlines. The company said it lost ¤181.9 million in the first nine months of the year, compared to profits of ¤51.1 million in the same stretch of 2008. Operating revenue fell 20 percent in the third quarter, and by 19 percent in the January-September period, it said.
