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A billion pound dip in revenue, allied to a billion pound dip in costs, leaving a pre-tax loss of £531m - British Airways is on one of those rollercoaster rides where it's not clear if the track has an upswing.

The loss may not be as bad as dire expectations, but it's still a huge hole in its finances.

Cabin crew strikes past and planned for the next few weeks are expected to cost it more than £100m in lost revenue and leasing of planes with crews from outside BA.

It's harder, for now, to quantify the impact on customer loyalty as they go to other check-in desks for less hassle and unpredictability.

The pay freeze and smaller crews - the proposals that sparked the strike - were intended to save more than £60m per year, though concessions already agreed may bring those savings down.

It's clearly making a calculation that strike losses and reputational damage combine into a price worth paying to break the power of its cabin crew staff union.

Going to hurt

But the scale of BA's operations and the scale of its other problems show the strike is a relatively small headache.

Volcanic ash has harmed it much more than its rivals. Passenger numbers in April were down 24%, while rival Ryanair limited that to 8%.

BA's just been hit by the new government at Westminster reversing the decision to allow a third runway at Heathrow.

And the coalition agreement has also shifted from a passenger-based air tax to one that's levied on each plane taking off.

For an airline that flies with significantly fewer passengers per plane than its rivals (79% of capacity last year, and much of each plane taken up with premium passengers enjoying that extra leg and elbow room), the tax change is going to hurt.

The upside - if there is one on this rollercoaster - is that British Airways hopes to be well-placed, growing out of the downturn, to be a major global player in the premium passenger, long-haul market.

Old model

Its merger with Iberia is intended to bring £360m cost saving synergies after five years, and it hopes for an alliance with American Airlines on trans-Atlantic routes, if the regulators allow it.

That would help compete with United and Continental, which are joining forces as the big airlines consolidate.

With a dominant position at Heathrow - even if its operations are constrained by the runway decision - BA has a prime position in international travel.

But it has to watch its back.

As chief executive Willie Walsh learned while at Aer Lingus, the old model is broken and it is airlines such as Ryanair that have created a new one.