Overall yield for the quarter was up 11.8 per cent at constant exchange. Volumes were down 0.7 per cent, while capacity grew by 3.6 per cent.

Lynne Embleton, CEO at IAG Cargo, commented: “A buoyant premium market has continued in to the first quarter of 2018.

“We’ve experienced good market conditions across the majority of our regions, with Europe and Asia Pacific - and particularly India - leading the way. Our specialist pharmaceutical offering, Constant Climate, has delivered continued growth, moving life-saving vaccines across the globe.

“Critical, our must-fly non off-loadable product, has surpassed 4,000 shipments since launch and has recently moved a variety of goods ranging from orthopaedic prosthetics and snowboards, to the world’s most expensive perfume.

“Q1 has also seen us explore new ways of using technology in order to enhance our customer experience. Most notably, at the start of the year we undertook the first airside trial of a self-driving vehicle at a UK airport in a move to explore the future of autonomy in airport logistics.

“Our network offering continues to expand with a new route from Madrid to San Francisco launched in April, a London Gatwick to Toronto service which began operating on 1 May and our first ever Dublin-Seattle flight launches 18 May, while our Heathrow-Nashville flight launches today.

“As 2018 progresses so will our investment across our operation, alongside our continued focus on enhancing the proposition and service we deliver for our customers.”