Air France-KLM schrapt de komende dagen 70-90% van de vluchtcapaciteit vanwege de wereldwijde uitbraak van corona. Dat heeft het Nederlands-Franse luchtvaartconcern bekendgemaakt. Eerder maakte KLM al bekend om honderden banen te schrappen. De maatregel geldt voorlopig voor twee maanden.
Het bericht over de vérgaande maatregelen werd maandag in Parijs naar buiten gebracht via de website van de Air France-KLM groep.
KLM publiceert op een speciale ‘coronapagina’ vrijwel dagelijks updates over het vliegen naar tal van bestemmingen. Zo wordt er de komende 2 weken niet meer gevlogen van en naar China, Iran en Zuid-Korea. Ook tal van bestemmingen in Italië zijn voorlopig geschrapt.
Het officiële persbericht van AirFrance-KLM over de coronacrisis
The COVID-19 crisis has continued to spread in recent days, leading many countries to take increasingly stringent measures in an attempt to slow the rate of spread of the epidemic. Some countries have imposed constraints on the movement of travellers from France, the Netherlands or more broadly from Europe. In France, the transition to a level 3 public health emergency requires the closure of all non-essential services since last weekend.
Faced with these growing restrictions on the possibility of travelling and a strong downward trend in demand which has resulted in a drop in traffic and sales over the last few weeks, the Air France-KLM Group is obliged to gradually reduce its flight activity very significantly over the next few days, with the number of available seat kilometers (ASK) potentially decreasing between -70% and -90%.
This reduction in capacity is currently scheduled to last two months, and the Group will continue to monitor the evolution of the situation on a daily basis and adjust it if necessary.
As a result of this reduction in capacity, Air France will ground its entire Airbus 380 fleet and KLM its entire Boeing 747 fleet. To deal with this situation, the Group has already taken a number of strong measures to secure its cash flow:
- Additional savings measures have been identified, which will generate €200 million in 2020
- An initial review of the investment plan has reduced the capital expenditure plan by €350 million, to which will be added the impact of the decline in activity on the amount of maintenance investments
- Air France and KLM will be consulting with their elected employee representatives on measures to take into account the impact of the expected decline in activity, including a project to implement partial activity
- Last week, the Air France-KLM Group drew a revolving credit facility for a total amount of €1.1 billion and KLM drew a revolving credit facility for a total amount of €665 million. As of March 12, the Group and its subsidiaries had more than €6 billion in cash and cash equivalents
In spite of the measures taken, the deterioration of the environment linked to the epidemic and the sharp reduction in its activity that has resulted today lead the group to forecast a sharply deteriorated financial trajectory compared to the outlook presented at the publication of its annual results. Indeed, the Group estimates that the drop in revenues from the Passenger business resulting from the reduction in capacity will only be offset by around 50% by the drop in variable costs before cost savings measures.
In this extremely difficult context, the Air France-KLM Group has welcomed the statements made by the French and Dutch governments, which have each indicated that they were studying all possible means to support the Group.
