Air France-KLM notes ‘challenging’ H1 market conditions
02 / 08 / 2019
The Air France-KLM Group’s cargo capacity and volumes rose during the first half of 2019, but market pressures brought revenues down.
Cargo capacity was up by 2.1% and traffic by 0.9%, bringing the load factor down by 0.7 percentage points to 58.8%. Volumes, at 549,000 tons, were up by 0.7%.
The group blamed the global economic slowdown, trade disputes and an overall high level of airfreight capacity across the industry for a 5.7% drop in unit revenue per available tonne-km. Both the North American and Asian networks posted declines. Total cargo revenue fell by 0.5% to €1.08bn.
In response to these developments, the group will focus on increasing its load factors while rationalising capacity.
It said: “In recent years, Air France-KLM has significantly rationalised its full freighter business to concentrate on transporting cargo in the bellies of passenger aircraft. This generates revenues that are key when it comes to balancing the profitability of the Group’s routes.
“To seize opportunities in the air freight market, Air France-KLM continues to rescale its activity, focused on the utilisation of long- and medium-haul aircraft bellies. The Group is putting the emphasis on digitisation and the simplification of processes, and on a high level of service quality.”
During the first half, the operating result for Air France-KLM’s combined passenger and cargo businesses stood at €12 million in the first half 2019 – €138 million lower than in the same period of 2018.
