The Air France group has announced its financial results for the full year 2014. It was a challenging year for the group, which includes KLM, because of extensive pilot strikes in the second half of the year.
That said, the group delivered revenues of €24.9 billion, up 0.3% on the previous year on a like-for-like basis. Earnings were €1.589 billion, down by €266 million, which showed the effect of the 14-day-long industrial action.
The group said that the strike had an estimated negative impact of €425 million on the operating result while revenues were reduced by €495 million, partly offset by 70 million euros of net savings on costs.
The airline group's CEO Alexandre de Juniac said the company's strategic business plan Transform 2015 had been completed by the end of 2014 to improve the group's competitiveness. "The full year 2014 results speak for themselves: despite the challenging economic and competitive context, once corrected for the impact of the Air France pilot strike, EBITDA is up by more than 50% in three years, and the operating cash flow has more than tripled to reach nearly 1.5 billion euros. This essential step in the turnaround of the group was only achieved thanks to the full commitment of staff across the group."
In the light of this, we thought it would be useful to take a look at the group's cost base, which is shown below. Total operating costs were 1.4% lower year-on-year and 0.8% lower on a like-for-like basis. Excluding fuel, costs decreased by 0.4% and by 0.5% on a like-for-like basis.
