Air France KLM Cargo eyes expansion in Asia over Q3 business improvement

Dhaka: Air France KLM Martinair Cargo witnessed improvements in cargo volumes, revenues and yield in the third quarter of 2024, thanks to rising demand out of Asia Pacific.

The Franco-Dutch airline group noted a 0.6 per cent increase in overall third-quarter cargo revenues to EUR 561 million, while cargo traffic revenues improved by 7.3 per cent from last year to EUR 471 million.

Cargo carried was up by 3.5 per cent to 226,000 tonnes and the cargo load factor improved by 0.7 percentage points to 45.5 per cent as capacity was up 1.5 per cent. Yields (unit revenue per ATK) were up 5.9 per cent compared to 2023.

The airline group said that much of the volume growth came from the Asia Pacific market. Hence, it hopes to capitalise on the trend through the deployment of additional capacity to the region.

“Today’s airfreight market is dynamic and Asia in particular is performing well driven by e-commerce and the Red Sea disruption. In response to market dynamics, a part of the Group’s full freighter capacity is being redeployed to Asia,” the company said in a release.

The improvement in performance in third quarter cargo revenues can be seen when comparing with the carrier group’s results over the first nine months. Between January and September, the group saw its cargo traffic revenues fall by 8.5 per cent year on year and yields were down 9.6 per cent.

Furthermore, the group, in early October, launched a programme named “Back on Track” at KLM, which aims to address productivity, revenue and operational shortfalls and deliver a EUR 450m (USD 484 million) in short-term EBIT improvement.

Air France-KLM achieved an operating profit of EUR 1.18 billion for the third quarter, down EUR 162 million year on year.