Air France-KLM plans staff reduction after $648 million Q3 loss

13 February 2009

Air France-KLM, Europe's biggest airline, reported a net loss of euro505 million ($648 million) in its fiscal third quarter, and announced plans for a job freeze that would eliminate 1,000-1,200 jobs this year through a moratorium on hiring and by not replacing retirees.

The company, which posted a euro 139 million profit in the the third quarter of the last financial year, registered an operating loss of euro 194 million in the third quarter this year as the economic crisis reduced demand for flights and cargo traffic.

It reported a net income of 103 million euros restated for non-recurrent and non-cash items for the first nine months of the current fiscal.

The passenger business saw a 3.4 per cent rise in traffic and a 2.9 per cent rise in capacity while the load factor gained 0.3 points at 79.5 per cent.

Long-haul traffic proved relatively resilient, but saw a decline in premium class revenues which the more robust performance of economy class was insufficient to offset, the airlines said.

Medium-haul suffered from a poor performance on the French domestic market in terms of both traffic and unit revenues.