Air France-KLM Cargo still posting losses in first half of 2016

It’s been a year already scarred with bad economic and political news in France and much of Western Europe, and it has so far been reflected in the first-half figures from Air France-KLM Cargo, which saw freight volumes fall 6.5 percent to 558,000 tonnes, year-over-year. Cargo revenues for the first six months of the years also took a beating, down 15.7 percent, y-o-y, to $1.14 billion.

In its first-half report, the French-Dutch consortium pointed to unstable conditions in the regions where it operates. Starting with the Brexit, and a slew of terror attacks in Europe, the carrier added that increasing cargo capacity and weakness in national economies made for an especially challenging period.

That said, operating results improved by US$27.7 million dollars, still registering a loss of $128.5 million, with like-for-like, or adjusted year-on-year, calculations showing an improvement of $42.1 million.

Cargo accounted for 8 percent of the AF-KLM’s revenues in the first half. The carriers’ full-freighter business generated $13.3 million in losses over the first half. These losses were a $27.2 million improvement over the first half of last year. Overall, the carrier reduced cargo capacity by 8.1 percent in the first quarter and 3.2 percent in the second.

Over the second quarter, AF-KLM Cargo saw its revenue tonne kilometers down 12.9 percent, y-o-y, at constant currency. Over the same time period, load factors fell from 59.5 percent in 2015 to 85.5 percent a year later. Capacity, measured in available tonne kilometers, was also down by 3.2 percent, while traffic fell by 4.8 percent.