IAG said an investigation into the theft of customers’ data at its BA unit showed hackers may have stolen the personal information of a further 185,000 customers. BA apologized in September after the credit card details of hundreds of thousands of its customers were stolen over a two-week period in the most serious attack on its website and app. On Thursday BA said that it was notifying the holders of another 77,000 payment cards that the name, billing address, email address, card, payment information including card number, expiry date and security codes had potentially been compromised, and a further 108,000 without the security code. BA also revised down its original estimate of 380,000 cards compromised, saying only 244,000 of those were affected. This takes the total number of payment cards potentially affected by the hack to 429,000. However, BA confirmed that it had no verified cases of fraud since the announcement on Sept. 6, adding that potentially impacted customers were only those making reward bookings between April 21 and July 28 and who used a payment card.<br/>
oneworld
American Airlines shares rose 4% Thursday after the company said its profit margin for the current quarter would be higher than most on Wall Street expected, helped by a dip in fuel costs from their recent spike. The carrier by passenger traffic maintained its full-year guidance and forecast an additional $1 billion in revenue next year as improvements in aircraft, onboard technology and food offerings take effect. Its shares rose 4% to $31.54 in morning trading. They are still down 35& in the past 12 months, as American has struggled to grow revenue at the rate of rivals Delta and United. The company said it is targeting a pre-tax margin, excluding special items, between 4.5 and 6.5% in Q4. That suggests earnings above Wall Street’s expectations, analysts said. The carrier forecast unit revenue, a closely watched performance measure that compares sales to flight capacity, to rise between 1.5 to 3.5% in Q4. “Unit revenue guidance has been consistently ahead of expectations this earnings season as the industry is seeing good demand and improved yields due in part to strong close-in bookings,” said Helane Becker, an analyst at Cowen. In Q3, American’s profit halved, in line with Wall Street estimates, hurt by higher fuel costs and the impact of Hurricane Florence that forced it to cancel about 2,100 flights in September. The company said it would cut capacity, cancel loss-making routes and delay taking delivery of new aircraft to cut costs, but stuck to its full-year profit forecast of $4.50 to $5.00 per share.<br/>
Shares of Cathay Pacific slid nearly 7% to a nine-year low Thursday after it said data of about 9.4m passengers of Cathay and its unit, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, had been accessed without authorization. Cathay said late on Wednesday that in addition to 860,000 passport numbers and about 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers, the hackers accessed 403 expired credit card numbers and 27 credit card numbers with no card verification value (CVV). The company said it discovered suspicious activity on its network in March 2018 and investigations in early May confirmed that certain personal data had been accessed. Hong Kong’s privacy commission Thursday expressed serious concern over the data breach and urged the airline to notify passengers affected by the leak as soon as possible and provide details immediately. Shares of Cathay Pacific slid as much as 6.8% on Thursday to HK$9.90, their lowest in nine years. That compared with a 2% fall for the benchmark Hang Seng Index .HSI. The stock pared losses and was down 4.9 percent at 0528 GMT. “People are concerned about why it took so long for them to make an announcement,” said Linus Yip, chief strategist at First Shanghai Securities. “The market demands more details and explanation.”<br/>