Air France-KLM Cargo struck by difficult July

In July, Air France-KLM Cargo flew 700m revenue cargo tonne kilometres, 6.7% than in the same month of last year.
With capacity down by 3.2% year on year to 1.26bn cargo tonne kilometres, the load factor also deteriorated, by 2.1 percentage points to 55.5%.
July’s performance is really only more of the same for the group, however. Over the January-July period, Air France-KLM Cargo flew a total of 4.82bn cargo tonne kilometres, down by 7.4% year on year.
With available capacity over those seven months down by 5.3% year on year, the average load factor declined by 1.3 percentage points to 58.4%.
The Air France-KLM carrier combine has had a difficult time of late.
An Air France cabin crew strike that lasted between 27 July and 2 August added to the French airline’s passenger operations woes, but in terms of freight operations it is the Dutch airline that saw the biggest decline in July.
While Air France’s revenue tonne kilometre figure rose by 1% year on year in July to reach 300m and its cargo load factor remained stable at 48.9%, KLM flew 11.8% less cargo revenue tonne kilometres in July – down to 399m. Its July load factor, at 61.8%, was also down, by 3.4 percentage points.
The picture is similar for KLM over the first seven months of this year. Capacity fell by 9.1% and revenue tonne kilometres by a similar amount – 10.5%.
In other news from Air France, the carrier is to add Accra to its Paris Charles de Gaulle network from 28 February next year.
The Ghanaian capital will be served three times a week, by Airbus A330 until 27 March and, after that, by the freight-friendly Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
Part of the thinking behind the introduction of this new route is to “support Ghana’s buoyant economy, led by the development of the oil industry”, said Frederic Gagey, Air France chairman and chief executive.