Air France-KLM August Traffic Rises 2.8% on Americas
By Andrea Rothman. Bloomberg
Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) — Air France-KLM Group, Europe’s biggest airline, said passenger traffic rose 2.8 percent last month, led by travel to the Americas.
The load factor, or proportion of seats filled, declined 1.6 percentage points to 83.7 percent, as capacity rose 4.7 percent, Paris-based Air France-KLM said in a statement today. The number of passengers rose 1 percent to 6.8 million. Traffic growth accelerated from July, when the increase was 1.8 percent.
Unlike SkyTeam partner Delta Air Lines Inc. or British Airways Plc, both of which are reducing capacity, Air France is adding seats, though by less than planned. It will restrict capacity increases in the October-to-April winter schedule and next summer to 2 percent. Delta intends a 13 percent cut and British Airways will trim seats by as much as 5 percent.
Traffic, or the number of passengers multiplied by the distance flown, rose 6.6 percent on routes to North and South America, while the airline boosted capacity 6.5 percent. The load factor was unchanged at 87.2 percent.
Asian traffic increased 2.4 percent, while the carrier added 7.1 percent to capacity, causing the load factor to drop 4 points to 85.8 percent.
African and Middle Eastern traffic increased 0.9 percent, with capacity rising 1.9 percent. That led to a decline in load factor of 0.8 percentage point to 86.7 percent.
Traffic in Europe rose 0.9 percent while the airline increased capacity by 1.8 percent. The load factor fell 0.7 point to 75 percent.
Cargo traffic in August fell 4 percent while the carrier added 0.6 percent capacity. The decline was primarily related to Asia, in particular the effects of the Olympic Games in China, Air France said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Rothman in Toulouse, France, at aerothman@bloomberg.net.