Air France-KLM continues to focus on North America

The transatlantic route remains essential to the Air France-KLM group's network growth strategy, with 20 % of revenues generated on the transatlantic route. North America. Of the four new long-haul routes launched by Air France-KLM this summer, three have the United States as their destination. KLM launched a service from Amsterdam to Boston on 31 March, which will be followed on 6 June by Amsterdam-Las Vegas. For its part, Air France has been serving the United States since 31 March.he Paris-Dallas seasonal service with five frequencies a week. This is Air France's thirteenth destination in the United States, and the event was important enough for Anne Rigail, Air France's Chief Operating Officer, to take the initiative.he newly appointed CEO of France's national airlineofficiates at its inauguration.

In total, Air France-KLM offers 22 destinations and 330 weekly flights in North America during this season. Among other changes on the transatlantic route this summer, KLM is offering a sixth weekly frequency between Amsterdam and San Francisco, while Air France is adding three extra flights to Toronto from Paris, serving Canada's financial capital ten times a week.

According to Anne Rigail, the Europe-North America route served through a joint venture with her American partner Delta Airlines generates $12 billion in revenue. This transatlantic agreement, signed in 2009 between Air France-KLM, Delta and Alitalia, covers joint operations, as well as revenue and cost sharing on more than 275 daily flights linking the nine hubs operated by the four airlines. This represents almost 23% of total capacity between Europe and North America. Only the Lufthansa/United Airlines joint venture does better, with a market share of 27% on this route.

And this is just the beginning. The joint venture with Delta Airlines will be further expanded with a new partner by the end of the year, Britain's Virgin Atlantic. The new agreement should in fact merge the current joint venture with the one already existing between Delta and Virgin. Subject to obtaining the necessary legal approvals, the future partnership between the four airlines - Alitalia could withdraw from the JV after the arrival of new shareholders - should have an estimated value of 13 billion dollars between Europe, the United Kingdom and North America. This would translate into more than 300 transatlantic flights a day, 108 direct routes and more than 340 destinations.

The first step was taken on 4 March when Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic launched their first codeshare agreement, offering their respective customers new travel options from the UK to North America. For Air France and KLM customers, this means the ability to fly 24 new lines to North America via London Heathrow or Manchester. With the possibility of also accumulating miles via the various frequent flyer programmes. The extended joint venture is expected to achieve a market share of 25 % calculated on capacity. The choice of Virgin was naturally favoured by Air France-KLM's acquisition of a 31 % stake in the British airline.

Virgin Atlantic's North Atlantic network

X seasonal flight - XX year-round flight (Source: Virgin Atlantic)