The Air France-KLM Group continues to make progress at the start of 2024. And this despite additional costs linked to operational disruptions such as geopolitical conflicts. Turnover reached 6.7 billion euros, up 5.1% compared with the previous year. However, operating profit was 183 million euros lower than the previous year, giving a loss of 489 million euros.
According to Benjamin Smith, the Group's Chief Executive, "despite a difficult start to the year, which was marked by geopolitical tensions Air France-KLM recorded a further increase in revenues this quarter, benefiting from structurally robust travel demand. However, our operating result was impacted by costs related to operational disruptions and by the slowdown in the Cargo business. Nevertheless, we remain confident in our ability to achieve our unit cost targets for 2024. We are focused on implementing our strategic roadmap in order to meet our medium-term commitments." .
Passenger revenue generally on the rise
With capacity up by 4.5%, traffic was 5% up on the previous year. This resulted in a load factor up slightly by 0.4 points, or 86%. Air France-KLM's unit revenue Passage was up +2.1 % at constant exchange rates on the previous year. This increase reflects the rise in yield on all long-haul routes. However, the trend in Asia and the Middle East was the opposite. The end of restrictions resulted in an increase in capacity of 32%, with yield down by 6.9%.
The strongest growth in unit revenue/passenger was recorded by on the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean. It actually increased by 11%. On short and medium-haul routes, the load factor improved by 1.2 points to 82%, while yield rose by 2.6%. Overall, the Air France-KLM Group carried 20.9 million passengers in the first quarter. This represents a year-on-year increase of 6.2%. The Group forecasts that capacity in available seat kilometres for the Air France-KLM Group, including Transavia, will increase by 5% in 2024 compared with 2023.
