Air France-Klm collapses in 2020: the French-Dutch airline, which in the past had been close to aggregating Alitalia, closes last year's balance sheet with the worst loss ever. Red exceeds 7 billion euros in the calendar year, with turnover falling by almost 60% to just above 11 billion. The unprecedented shock is clearly due to the pandemic and the slowdown in international travel: for this reason Air France has had to do without two thirds of its passengers compared to 2019 (34.065, i.e. 67% less).
The bad news for Air France-KLM is that there has been no sign of recovery in the fourth quarter of the year and that indeed it has already been widely taken into account that the beginning of 2021 will be equally negative. The first quarter of 2021 will still be "difficult" and the recovery of visibility remains "limited", explains a note, even if there will probably be a recovery in traffic in the second and third quarters thanks to the progress of the vaccination campaign.
“2020 tested the Air France-KLM group with the most serious crisis ever experienced by the air transport sector – he commented group CEO Benjamin Smith -. Thanks to French and Dutch state support and this agile way of working, we have been able to drastically reduce our costs, protect our money and carry out major transformation plans within our airlines. In the coming months, we will continue to strengthen the core of the group, improving its economic and environmental performance, so that Air France-KLM can take full advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves, as the sector starts to recover”.
“We start 2021 waiting for a recovery in traffic, which will happen as soon as vaccination is widespread and the borders are reopened“, added the manager, while in France the hypothesis of extending aid from State also to 2021. However, the loss was in line with analysts' expectations, and in fact the share on the Paris Stock Exchange loses about half a percentage point. Much worse is the action of Airbus, another French group in the aeronautical sector, whose stock is among the worst of the CAC40 in mid-morning, with a loss of almost 4% after the 2020 accounts recorded a red of 1,1 billion.
