British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines said the UK carrier saw a 3.1 per cent rise in passenger traffic year-on-year last month, measured by revenue passenger kilometres. The wider group, which also owns Aer Lingus in Ireland and Spanish carrier Iberia, said its airlines flew 5.7 per cent more passengers in September, at 9.6 million. But IAG's load factor - a measure of how well it filled its planes - fell to 84.1 per cent from 84.7 per cent a year earlier. Shares in IAG rose by 3.1p or 0.8 per cent to 396.8p yesterday.