Air France-KLM (AFRAF.PK) reported Wednesday a decline in traffic and capacity in both passenger and cargo businesses for the month of September, while load factor improved.
The France-based airline's September traffic measured in revenue pax-kilometers, or RPK, declined 3.7% to 17.35 billion from 18.01 billion last year. Capacity, measured in available seat-kilometers, or ASK, was down 4.9% to 21.19 billion from September 2008 capacity of 22.28 billion. Load factor for September was 81.9%, up from 80.8% last year.
In September, European network carried the maximum number of passengers at 4.32 billion, but down from 4.60 billion carried in September a year ago, while the Caribbean and Indian Ocean network had the least number of passenger intake at 186 million, which again was less than 197 million passengers in September 2008.
The group noted that on the Americas network, a 3.9% decline in traffic was relatively lesser than the 6.4% reduction in capacity. Load factor gained 2.4 points to 88.3%. Its Africa and Middle East network traffic rose 0.8% with capacity up by 2.6%, while load factor declined 1.4 points to 77.4%.
Caribbean and Indian Ocean network saw a 9.5% reduction in capacity. Traffic was down 5.4%, leading to a 3.3 point gain in load factor to 75.9%. On the European network, both capacity and traffic were down by 5.6%. The load factor was therefore stable at 72.5%. The Asia network witnessed 3.6% and 4.4% drops in traffic and capacity respectively. Load factor improved by 0.8 points to 87.1%.
Air France-KLM's cargo business witnessed an improvement in load factor by 2.2 points to 66.1%, while capacity and traffic declined 20.0% and 17.2% respectively.
During September 2009, traffic was 908 million RTK, or revenue tonnage-kilometers, compared with 1.09 billion RTK. Capacity fell to 1.37 billion ATK, or available tonnage-kilometers, from 1.71 billion ATK and load factor rose to 66.1% from 63.9%.
On a year-to-date basis, the group's passenger traffic was down 4.5%, on a 4.6% capacity decline and load factor was 81.7%. Cargo traffic plummeted 19.3%, with capacity decline of 17.3% and load factor was 63.9%.
AFRAF.PK last traded on September 25 at $17.81.
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