Passenger numbers down 5.3%
Air France KLM today (October 7) reported a 3.7% drop in traffic for September compared to the same month last year.
The Franco-Dutch carrier said its capacity was down 4.9% compared with last year, giving it a 1% boost in load factor to 81.9%.
The group said it carried 6.2 million passengers, a drop of 5.3% compared to September 2008.
It said on its North America transatlantic routes, the 3.8% drop in traffic was "well below" its 6.4% capacity cut, leading to a 0.8% rise in load factor to 88.3%.
The airline said that on its European network both traffic and capacity were down 5.6% with the load factor stable at 72.5%.
Asian routes saw a 3.6% drop in traffic and a 4.4% cut incapacity. Load factor rose slightly by 0.8% to 87.1%.
There was a slight rise in traffic on African and Middle East routes of 0.8% where capacity also rose by 2.6%. But the load factor slipped by 1.4% to 77.4%.
Air France-KLM said in a statement: "Market conditions are similar to those prevailing before the summer and unit revenues remain under pressure."
www.airfrance.com [1] www.klm.com [2]