Olympic Games cause more damage to Air France-KLM than expected

This article was last updated on July 25, 2024

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Olympic Games cause more damage to Air France-KLM than expected

Airline Air France-KLM expects to miss out on 200 million euros this summer due to the Olympic Games. This is evident from the company’s half-year figures.

earlier the company already warned for disappointing results: between June and August this would amount to 160 to 180 million euros. That warning has now been adjusted upwards by another tens of million.

Passengers avoid Paris because of the expected crowds around the Olympic Games. The French-Dutch company notices that fewer airline tickets are being booked to and from Paris. French tourists in particular say they are postponing their flying holiday until after the Games for fear of chaos at the airport.

The fact that travelers avoid Paris has an impact on the entire company. Although profits at Dutch KLM increased slightly, profits fell by 314 million euros in the past six months. In the same period last year, a profit of 275 million was made.

Huge disappointment

KLM director Marjan Rintel speaks of a “huge setback” with the Olympic Games in Paris. “Even if you walk through the streets today you see that restaurants are empty and that you can easily book hotel rooms at a very reasonable price. That is certainly disappointing. And you can also see that in the revenues at Air France. There is a very different travel behavior.”

As an example, Rintel cites mainly business travelers who are currently ignoring Paris for fear of crowds. “There are also people who have always wanted to go to Paris, and now combine the Olympic Games with a holiday. But it is mainly the business community and business travelers who say: I want to go to Paris, but not during the Games.”

At the same time, the French-Dutch aviation combination has still not fully recovered from the lockdown periods during the corona crisis. “These figures show that there is still a lot of work to be done,” Rintel summarizes.

“This has to do with high fuel costs. The geopolitical situation in the world. And our capacity must be further increased. We are still not back to 100 percent of our long-distance flights. And the results are therefore disappointing. In the meantime, we also want to invest in cleaner, more economical and quieter aircraft.”

Computer failure.

Unforeseen problems, such as the global one computer outage on Friday, that doesn’t really help. KLM then had to cancel 75 return flights at Schiphol, resulting in damages of around 10 million euros for Air France-KLM.

Rintel calls the malfunction “a downer”, but believes that it could be resolved quickly. “Everyone was able to continue their journey successfully. Of course, we have scenarios ready to fall back on in the event of an IT failure. We also got the computers back on quickly. But we will of course evaluate this extensively and talk to suppliers to see how we can prevent this in the future.”