Air France-KLM has posted a full-year net loss of €198 million. The airline group has been impacted by the 14-day strike last September, which cost €425million, a sluggish economic environment and negative foreign exchange effects. Still, the €198 million loss was a marked improvement on a €1.2 billion net loss for 2013.
“The full year 2014 results speak for themselves: Despite the challenging economic and competitive context, once corrected for the impact of the Air France pilot strike, EBITDA is up by more than 50% in three years,” Air France-KLM chairman and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said.
Long-haul overcapacity contributed to a 2.4% fall in revenue to €24.9 billion, which produced an operating loss of €129 million. The airline group posted a €130 million operating profit in 2013. Passenger traffic for the group rose 0.5% to 229.3 billion RPKs on the back of a 0.6% fall in capacity to 270.8 billion ASKs. The load factor for the group rose 0.9 percentage points to 84.7%. Yields fell 3.1% to 8.15 cents as RASK lowered 2% to 6.9 euro cents and CASK decreased 0.7% to 6.93 euro cents.
The fall in revenue was more keenly felt at Air France, which fell 3.4% to €15.6 billion, with operating losses rising to €314 million. Taking out the impact of the 14-day strike, revenues fell 0.4% to €16.1 billion that would have allowed Air France to make a €99 million operating profit.
KLM revenue, however, fell very slightly by 0.5% to €9.6 billion, with an operating profit falling from €301 million in 2013 to €175 million.
KLM president and CEO Pieter Elbers said: “Air France has achieved significant a cost savings improvement over the last three years. KLM also achieved a lot in the first two years, but this has flattened out. The revenue environment is volatile, so we need to have all our focus on our unit costs.”