Wednesday 10 September 2008 // In a difficult global economic environment impacted by very high oil prices, the Air France-KLM Group’s winter schedule posts moderate growth for the 2008-09 season which starts on 26 October 2008.
The Group’s overall capacity is up 1.7% in available seat-km compared with winter 2007-08. This breaks down into -1.5% for the short and medium-haul network and +2.6% on long-haul routes (*).
Close-up of the Air France schedule
In the rather unfavourable context where fuel purchases account for a very large part of costs, Air France is offering the same capacity as last year and has adjusted its schedule as closely as possible to the seasonality of the demand. In particular, more flights have been cancelled during the very slack periods.
Overall capacity remains stable with +0.1% of available seat-km compared with winter 2007-08, which breaks down into +1.0% on the long-haul network and –2.6% on the medium-haul network (*).
Long-haul schedule
Thanks to the Air France-Delta Joint Venture implemented this summer, capacity has increased by 3.5% on the North American routes, 3.0% of which is due to the resumption of the CDG-JFK flight, previously operated by Delta, which raises the number of daily flights between Paris-CDG and New York operated by Air France to six (5 to JFK and 1 to Newark).
All services operated during summer have been maintained (London-Los Angeles with 5 weekly flights instead of 7 this summer, Paris-CDG-Salt Lake City and Lyon-New York, the last two operated by Delta).
At the same time, to cope with less traffic during winter, capacity was adjusted downwards in terms of frequencies to Houston which now offers one daily flight instead of 12 weekly flights, and to Chicago where the 6 weekly flights have dropped to 5. Capacity has also been reduced to Philadelphia and Detroit which will be operated with the A330-200.
Seat capacity has increased to Mexico City and Buenos Aires with the entry into service of the B777-300ER, but it has decreased to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo which will be partially operated with the A330-200 this winter. After several seasons of very strong growth, capacity has stabilized in this very strategic area for Air France (down 1.8%).
Available seat-km have increased by 2.2% on the Africa network with the addition of one weekly frequency to Kinshasa (4/7), Niamey (4/7) and Ouagadougou (7/7), and the entry into service of a larger capacity aircraft to Bangui (A340-300).
The restructuring of services to Teheran with the suspension of flights from Paris has led to a 2.7% drop in capacity on the Middle Eastern network compared with winter 2007-08. KLM continues to serve Teheran out of Amsterdam with one extra flight, making a total of 5 weekly flights.
There are now more flights to Dubai (2 daily) and Cairo (12 weekly flights). Excluding Teheran, the Middle East posts 6.1% growth.
On Asian routes, capacity has grown by 1.4% this winter thanks to the introduction of the B777-300ER on the night flight to Hong Kong and the twice-daily service to Shanghai launched this summer.
Lastly capacity remains stable on the Caribbean-Indian Ocean network.
Medium-haul network
Capacity on medium-haul routes has dropped by 2.6% compared with winter 2007-08. This reflects the considerable adjustment of Air France capacity during periods where demand is flat, particularly between Christmas and the New Year and in January and early February.
On departure from Paris
All new features launched this summer will be maintained for the winter season, with increased frequencies on departure from Paris-CDG (Nantes: 5 daily, Pau: 4 daily and Lyon: 7 daily) and from Paris-Orly (Toulouse: 29 daily and Biarritz: 7 daily).
This winter, service to Kiev has been boosted with a second daily frequency.
A new destination in Spain has been added to the network: Oviedo served from Paris-CDG with 2 daily flights operated by Régional. At the same time, the Orly-Séville route operated by Air Europa has been suspended.
Lastly, a service between Paris-CDG and Limoges has also been suspended.
On departure from the French regions
A large number of changes has been made, and in particular:
The networks from Bordeaux and Clermont-Ferrand have been restructured.
Montpellier, Mulhouse, Geneva and Clermont-Ferrand will no longer be served out of Bordeaux. The same goes for Montpellier, Metz and Milan on departure from Clermont-Ferrand.
On the other hand, Air France is boosting services on departure from Lyon with a sixth frequency to Bordeaux and increased capacity to Toulouse, as well as additional frequencies from Marseille to Rome, Lille and Nantes. The Marseille-Brest service has, however, been suspended.
On departure from London City
The CityJet for Air France network has also been reorganized with the suspension of services from Belfast and Zurich which have enabled us to increase our capacity and adjust schedules to Geneva (5 daily), Paris-CDG (2 daily) and Edinburgh (7 daily).
(*) N.B. The 2008-2009 winter season (26 October 2008-28 March 2009) has one day less than the previous year, which will have an impact of -0.7 points on business.
