PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Shares of Air France-KLM Group (AFRAF.PK) were gaining around 4 percent in Paris trading after the airline reported Wednesday narrower net loss in its fourth quarter with improved revenues.
For fiscal 2019, Air France-KLM Group plans to selectively grow capacity for the Passenger network by 2 percent to 3 percent compared to 2018, amid the current geopolitical environment and fuel price trends. Transavia will continue to grow at a sustained pace of 9 percent to 11 percent.
For the first quarter, passenger unit revenues at constant currency are expected to be below last year partly due to the Easter shift.
The company will pursue initiatives to reduce unit costs, with a targeted reduction for 2019 of between -1 percent to 0 percent at constant currency and fuel price. The full year 2019 fuel bill is expected to increase by 650 million euros compared to 2018 to 5.6 billion euros.
Air France-KLM said it has reached an important milestone by carrying more than 100 million passengers in 2018, with the largest long-haul network operating out of Europe.
CEO Benjamin Smith said, 'The strong performance of our front-line teams and continued cost control helped partly offset the impact of strikes at Air France in the first half of the year, as well as significant fuel headwinds.'
For the fourth quarter, net loss- Group part narrowed to 218 million euros from 928 million euros last year.
Operating result, meanwhile, dropped 82.4 percent to 40 million euros, and operating margin declined 3 percentage points to 0.6 percent. EBITDA for the quarter declined 20 percent to 776 million euros.
Total revenues for the quarter grew 4.1 percent to 6.538 billion euros from 6.278 billion euros last year. The number of passengers increased 3.4 percent to 24.46 million.
Unit revenue per EASK dropped 0.6 percent to 6.41 euro cents.
Capacity in EASK grew 3.7 percent to 89.14 billion. Capacity excluding cargo grew 4.1 percent, and traffic excluding cargo grew 4.5 percent.
Network revenue increased 3.7 percent to 5.73 billion euros. Total passenger network revenues were 5.09 billion euros, up 3.7 percent. Load factor was 86.1 percent, up 0.2 percentage points.
Total cargo revenues increased 3.4 percent to 635 million euros. Cargo load factor grew 0.7 percentage points to 63.9 percent.
In Paris, Air France-KLM shares were trading at 10.80 euros, up 4.1 percent.
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