British Airways (BA) may spurn the corporate bond market in favour of the equity-linked market next year after witnessing the success enjoyed by rival Deutsche Lufthansa, which on Thursday launched a €650m ($578m) convertible bond that closed heavily oversubscribed.

Analysts believe airlines such as BA, which was downgraded to sub-investment grade by both Moody's and Standard & Poor's, may seek to emulate Lufthansa in order to avoid having to pay a high price in the plain vanilla bond market.