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British Airways Launches New Fare Brands Offering Enhanced Flexibility

Wednesday 24 February, 2021 – British Airways has today launched two new fare brands for its trade customers, which offer refundable options and enhanced flexibility. Select and Select Pro are both refundable fares, which will give customers the flexibility to cancel a flight and claim a full or partial refund should their travel plans change. There will also be no change fee payable for Select and Select Pro bookings.

The Select and Select Pro fares are available to book from today, exclusively for agents, via both the GDS or NDC. They will sit alongside the current Basic, Standard/Plus and Fully Flexible fares, and will enhance the suite of fare options available to suit the different budgets and flexibility needs of customers. In the UK, Select fares will be available on short-haul routes and long-haul routes, and Select Pro available on long-haul routes.*

The table below shows the differences between each available fare brand:

These new fare products will also be available to book through British Airways’ Atlantic Joint Business partners American Airlines, Iberia and Finnair.

Fares will cost from £50 extra on a short-haul return ticket and from £100 extra on a long-haul return ticket, compared with Standard/Plus fares. The refund fee for Select products is similar.**

British Airways’ book with confidence commitment for free changes or the ability to take a voucher will continue to apply to all Basic, Standard/Plus, Fully Flexible, Select and Select Pro bookings. As always, if a flight is cancelled the customer is entitled to a full refund.

More information for trade partners is available through the BA Travel Trade website. Partners can also contact their Account Manager.

Lockheed Martin Raises 2019 Profit Forecast, Shares Jump

FILE PHOTO: Lockheed Martin is seen at Euronaval, the world naval defence exhibition in Le Bourget near Paris, France, October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

(Reuters) – Lockheed Martin Corp reported a better-than-expected 47 percent jump in quarterly profit on Tuesday and raised its annual profit forecast, helped by strong demand for its missiles and fighter jets, sending its shares up more than 5 percent in pre-market trading.

U.S. weapons makers have been expected to benefit from stronger global demand for fighter jets and munitions and higher U.S. defence budgets in fiscal 2020 as they announce first quarter earnings this week.

Lockheed’s Missiles and Fire Control business, which makes missile defences like the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), was one of its best-performing units.

On April 1, the unit was awarded a THAAD interceptor missile contract worth $2.4 billion, some of which are slated to be delivered to Saudi Arabia, which could boost earnings for the current quarter.

Overall, the Bethesda, Maryland-based company said its earnings rose to $1.70 billion, or $5.99 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $1.16 billion, or $4.02 per share, a year earlier. That was partly helped by a $75 million dollar boost from additional tax deductions on foreign military sales.

Excluding that one-time gain, Lockheed reported $5.73 per share profit, well ahead of the $4.34 per share that Wall Street had expected, on average, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Lockheed’s overall net sales for the quarter rose 23 percent to $14.34 billion. The company’s sales backlog grew to $133.5 billion, up 3 billion over the quarter.

Operating margins at the aeronautics division, Lockheed’s biggest, fell to 10.5 percent in the first quarter from 10.8 percent a year earlier, but sales were up 27 percent to $5.5 billion on demand for the F-35 jet and some classified contracts.

The United States is considering expanding sales of Lockheed-made F-35 fighter jets to five new nations including Romania, Greece and Poland as European allies bulk up their defences in the face of a strengthening Russia, a Pentagon official told Congress in early April.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington D.C. and Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Bill Rigby)