Quarterly Profits of Air France KLM Climb

Air France KLM reported quarterly operating earnings up 7.8 percent to €568 million and increased its merger synergy targets as it remained confident on full-year earnings.

The gap came as a 19 percent increase in passenger operating profit to €505 million met headwinds from a €6 million loss in cargo operations, triggered by price pressure in Asia.

The world’s largest airline by revenues also posted a sharp drop in net profit for the three months to end-September to €374 million, but this was expected because of a large capital gain a year earlier on the sale of a reservations system stake.

Several analysts had expressed hopes Air France KLM would provide specific outlook figures given the importance of the second quarter, which includes the northern hemisphere summer.

Fuel charges rose 29 percent in the quarter to €1.17 billion, while commercial and distribution costs fell 6.9 percent and widely watched staff costs rose 6.7 percent.The airline’s yield, the underlying amount it makes from each passenger, rose 4.7 percent as it adopted a firmer price policy to ease its high load factor, executives said.