Forbes reports British Airways' (BA) the biggest third-quarter profit in 12 years because of its stabilisation in the revenue environment and fairly concerted cost cutting.

Shares of BA, which has slashed more than 12,600 jobs in the past two years, rose as much as 4.2 percent in early trading after the company posted a pretax profit of 125 million pounds ($232 million) for the three months to December 31. Sales rose by 1.8 percent to 1.891 billion pounds on the back of the gradual recovery in demand for air travel, a better economic outlook and cheap ticket offers to encourage travel.

Net debt stood at 4.511 billion pounds at December 31, its lowest level since December 1997. The company said last year it would be comfortable with debt levels of three billion pounds.