British Airways carried 11.4 percent fewer passengers in March year-on-year, hit by seven days of strikes which could cost the carrier nearly $70 million, and added its merger with Spanish airline Iberia was on track.

"The traffic numbers reflect the industrial action which took place last month and the impact of that is between 40 and 45 million pounds," George Stinnes, BA's group treasurer told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday.

"We operated 79 percent of long-haul and 58 percent of shorthaul flights over the two strikes and if there are more (strikes) we would expect to fly a substantial programme."

Shares in BA were 2.0 percent down at 238.70 percent by 14:47 p.m., valuing the business at around 2.9 billion pounds.

BA cabin crew last week completed a four-day strike after walking out for three days earlier in March in a dispute over pay and jobs after the Unite union and BA failed to reach a peace deal following weeks of talks.

Unite has warned it will stage more stoppages unless the two sides can come to an agreement.

Citigroup analysts had expected BA's traffic to fall 11.5 percent due to the stoppages and the threat of walkouts deterring bookings.

BA said the number of its premium, or business class, passengers fell 7.2 percent on the 2009 figure, while non-premium traffic dropped 12.2 percent on the same month last year.

Its load factor -- a measure of how well it fills planes -- rose 2 percentage points to 74.7 percent.

BA said excluding the impact of the strikes underlying air traffic demand continued to recover from the worst industry downturn in decades.

The global recession battered the airline industry in 2009 as consumers cut back on trips but industry body IATA said airlines were climbing out of recession with passenger travel growing strongly since the turn of the year.

MERGER SIGNING NEARS

Stinnes said he expected the Iberia merger accord to be signed soon and that he did not envisage any hiccups scuppering the deal.

"Everything with the merger is on track and there are no substantial business issues which will derail the process -- I would expect the signing of it to materialise shortly," he said.

BA and Iberia had expected to sign the agreement before March. 31, but last-minute technical issues delayed the announcement.

Stinnes added that European and U.S. regulators would likely make a decision on BA's proposed trans-atlantic tie-up with American Airlines and Iberia in "June or July."