AF/KL Traffic Decline in May

[AirNav Development]

As a copy/paste of airliners.net board a very interesting post:

AF/KL released yesterday its corporate results for the month of May which showed again a decline in traffic this time of -8.1% and -5.7% decline in capacity. Load factor decrease 2% to 77.3%.

- On the Americas network traffic declined 9.8% with a 8.3% reduction in capacity. The load factor declined 1.5 points to 82.6%.

- On the Asia network capacity was strongly reduced by 8.3% while traffic declined 11.1%. The load factor dropped 2.2 points to 79.4%.

- Traffic on the Africa and Middle East network rose 0.3% with capacity up 4.0%. The load factor fell 2.7 points to 71.8%.

- The Caribbean and Indian Ocean network saw reductions in traffic and capacity of 6.5% and 6.6% respectively, leading to a stable load factor of 80.5% (+0.1 point).

- The European network saw capacity down 4.5% and traffic by 7.4%. The load factor declined 2.2 points to 70.1%.

Cargo business

AF/KL consolidated the cargo activity of Amsterdam-based Martinair. Including Martinair, traffic declined slightly (-1.0%) while capacity rose 2.1%. The load factor declined by 1.9 points to 62.9%.

http://corporate.klm.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/archive-2009/may-2009-traffic

[AirNav Development]

SAS :

In May 2009, SAS Group's RPK traffic decreased by -18.1%, while ASK capacity was down -16.7% year-on-year, leading to a -1.2 pt decrease in load factor to 71.5% (LF broadly stable on European medium haul , but -4.2 pts on long-haul). The Group carried 2.2 Mpax (down -17%).
Yield for Scandinavian Airlines in April was down by -11.7% (affected by Easter timing). Taken April and March together the yield was down by -1.7%. For May 2009, the change in yield is expected to be negative.

B.A :

In May 2009, British Airways' Premium traffic plunged by -17.2% and non-Premium by -4.2%. Global RPK traffic fell -6.5% on ASK capacity down -5.3%, leading to a slight decline in load factor (-1.0 pt to 75.1%). Premium traffic is not getting better, since its decline is broadly the same as in April (-17.7%), when Easter holiday particularly affected Premium volumes (Easter in March in 2008). Freight traffic declined by -9.5%.

According to The Times, British Airways told its 14,000 cabin crew that it was looking for the equivalent of 2,000 voluntary redundancies and if these cuts cannot be achieved, the redundancies could become compulsory. BA management would also have begun working on contingency plans to deal with a possible industrial action during the holiday period, which could result from the cuts.