IAG shares rise as oil drop shifts focus to fuel bill before July results

LONDON, July 2, 2026, 17:02 BST

• IAG was shown up 2.18% after the London close, ahead of a 1.67% rise in the FTSE 100.
• Brent crude fell nearly 2% to $70.66, its lowest in four months, after U.S.-Iran talks in Doha.
• Gulf carriers had restored around 90% of normal flights by mid-June, cutting into the Europe traffic shift that helped some non-Middle East airlines.
• IAG’s next scheduled numbers are Q2 results on July 31.

International Consolidated Airlines Group SA LON:IAG rose on Thursday, with the British Airways owner’s stock still trading close to last week’s high as investors repriced the fuel risk that drove its May profit warning. Hargreaves Lansdown showed IAG at a 477.30p/477.50p bid-ask after the market close, with the page showing a 10.20p, or 2.18%, rise; the same screen showed the FTSE 100 up 1.67%.

The more useful number was volume. Google Finance’s delayed quote showed 11.01 million IAG shares traded against average volume of 17.75 million, a light tape for a stock sitting near a 52-week high of 492.90p.

The stock’s cleanest near-term driver is no longer just traffic. It is oil. Reuters reported Brent crude down nearly 2% at $70.66 a barrel, a four-month low, after Qatar said there had been “positive progress” in U.S.-Iran talks in Doha. Reuters

That matters because IAG told investors in May that, based on the fuel curve at May 5, its 2026 fuel cost would be about 9 billion euros. The group said it was 70% hedged for the rest of the year and expected to recover around 60% of the higher fuel cost through revenue and cost actions.

Chief Executive Luis Gallego said in IAG’s May statement that the group saw “no issues with fuel availability” in its main markets. He also said the problem was more about price than availability.

The fresh traffic data is less one-way. Reuters reported on Wednesday that Asian carriers that had gained passengers and fares on Europe routes after the Iran conflict were seeing those gains fade as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad restored flights and cut prices. Gulf carriers had returned to around 90% of normal flight levels by mid-June, while non-stop Asia-Europe traffic growth narrowed to 15% in May from nearly 30% in March.

“It is clear that we have passed the peak of the load factor gains,” said Nathan Gee, head of Asia-Pacific transportation research at BofA Global Research. Independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie said the shift back was “not overnight.” Reuters

For IAG, the data cuts against a simple “Asia-Europe detour” trade. Asia Pacific was its fastest-growing region in the first quarter, but it was only 5.0% of group available seat kilometres. North Atlantic and Latin America/Caribbean routes together made up 50.5% of capacity.

IAG said around 3% of its capacity had been exposed to the Gulf region before the conflict, with affected routes including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Israel, Jordan and Cyprus. It said it had redeployed a large part of that network to routes including Bangkok, Singapore and Male, and added British Airways flights tied to India, Nairobi, the United States, the Caribbean and Sri Lanka.

That leaves investors with a narrower question for July: whether lower oil can offset any loss of rerouting benefit as Gulf carriers come back. IAG said in May that second-quarter booked revenue was 80%, in line with past levels, and that capacity would rise about 1% in Q2 and about 2% in Q3, below the 3% growth it had guided in February.

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