The Air France-KLM group will reduce its activity from 70% to 90% in the next two months at least, due to travel restrictions and the drop in demand in the face of the spread of the coronavirus.
Read also: LIVE - Coronavirus: the situation is "very worrying" and "deteriorates very quickly", warns Jérôme Salomon
The group's offer in seat kilometers offered, a measure of the calculation of the number of seats offered on an airline, " could drop between -70% and -90% ", according to a press release from the group which programmed this decrease " for a duration of 2 months ”. Air France-KLM "will continue to follow the evolution of the context on a daily basis to make it evolve if necessary ". At the opening of the Paris Stock Exchange, the share of Air France-KLM declined by more than 17%.
Air France will notably immobilize " its entire Airbus 380 fleet " and KLM " its entire Boeing 747 fleet ".
The group also forecasts " a severely degraded financial trajectory " compared to the objectives announced when its latest results were published in late February. The group estimates that its decline in activity will only be compensated " to the tune of around 50% by the drop in variable costs before saving measures ", according to the press release. He also specifies that the group has already taken " strong measures " to " secure its cash ", including 200 million euros in savings for 2020, the implementation of partial unemployment or a reduction of 350 million 'euros from its investment plan' to which will be added the impact of the drop in activity on the amount of maintenance investments '.
Announced in February, this investment plan planned to mobilize 3.6 billion euros for 2020.
Finally, the group " last week drew a revolving line of credit for a total amount of 1.1 billion euros and KLM for its part drew a revolving line of credit for a total amount of 665 million euros " , and has, as of March 12, " more than € 6 billion in cash ".