PARIS: Struggling French flag carrier Air France yesterday said last month’s two-week strike would have an impact of around €500m on its bottom line for this year.
Taking into account the lost revenue during the strike and the knock-on impact of disgruntled passengers staying away in future, the impact over 2014 for the Air France-KLM group will be “in the order of €500m” ($632m), said financial director Pierre-Francois Riolacci. “We need a few more days to finalise completely our estimates. But we think the impact on the third quarter will be in a range of €320m-€350m.”
The news sent Air France shares into a tailspin on the Paris market, losing four percent while the overall market was broadly flat. Riolacci said the knock-on consequences were harder to calculate exactly but warned there would be an impact both on the last quarter of the year and the first part of next year as Air France, Europe’s second-largest airline, battles to win back its reputation.
“We made some savings (like in aviation fuel) because the planes were not flying,” he noted.
“On the other hand, we had additional costs: putting passengers up, compensation or buying tickets from our competitors for some of our passengers, which we did not always get at the best price,” he said. AFP
