BRITISH CALEDONIAN GROUP ANNOUNCES BIG LOSSES <British Caledonian Group>, Britain's second largest airline, has announced a 19.3 mln stg pretax loss for the financial year ending last October, compared with a record pre-tax profit of 21.7 mln stg in 1985, chairman Sir Adam Thomson told reporters. A decline in U.S. Transatlantic traffic following terrorist attacks in Europe, the U.S. Bombing of the Libya, the Chernobyl disaster and a slump in the oil industry which affected Middle East traffic were the main causes of the loss, Thomson said. He said the poor results were caused by "a range of exceptional circumstances wholly outside our direct control" and predicted a return to profitability this year. Last year, the airline was forced to axe 1,000 jobs, sell some of its assets and cut the number of its flights across the Atlantic and to the Middle East following the fall in business .