Air France KLM Sept passenger traffic up 2.7% from last year

Air France KLM reported Monday a rise in passenger traffic in September, with the airline aiming to improve its business performance after strikes earlier this year cost it millions of euros and led to a management shake-up. Air France KLM said it carried a total of 9.1m passengers last month across the group's various airline brands, up 2.7% from a year ago. It added that its load factor had increased by 0.2 percentage points to 88.6%. Benjamin Smith took over as new group CE last month. Smith faces the unenviable task of having to overcome union resistance to shrink the French unit's swollen cost base while keeping increasingly frustrated Dutch staff on side. Strikes earlier this spring cost the group some E350m and led to the departure of Smith's predecessor, while Air France KLM shares have fallen nearly 40% so far in 2018. <br/>