2/19/2026

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Air France KLM full year 2025 results presentation. Today's conference is being recorded. During the presentation, participants will be on listen mode only, and analysts will be able to ask questions by dialing hashtag 5 on their telephone keypad after this presentation. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Benjamin Smith, CEO, and Stephen Zott, CFO. Please go ahead, sirs.

speaker
Benjamin Smith
CEO, Air France-KLM

Okay. Thank you very much for that. for your introduction, operator. So, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Air France-KLM's four-year 2025 results. I'm joined today by Stephen Zat, Group CFO, Emily Guy, CEO of Air France, and Marianne Rintel, President and CEO of KLM, whose mandate has just been renewed for another four years. Congratulations to Marianne. I'll start with the key highlights from the year, followed by Stephen. who will walk you through our financial performance and outlook for 2026. I'll then wrap up with closing remarks on our 2028 ambitions before opening the floor for Q&A. Okay, moving on to slide three. Let me begin by recalling that we are executing our strategy in a consistent and disciplined manner across all the pillars of our strategy, and this execution is translating into tangible and encouraging results. We are reinforcing our market position, notably through the proposed increase of our stake in Scandinavian airline system, strengthening our footprint in the Nordics and enhancing connectivity to key North American and Asian markets. We continue to improve profitability, with our operating margin reaching 6.1%, reflecting stronger revenue generation and rigorous cost control. Customer satisfaction and brand value remain strong, as reflected by multiple international distinctions across the group, including Air France being named best airline in Western Europe by Skytrax for the fifth consecutive year. Employee engagement continues to improve, with our employee promoter score up 33%, reflecting the strong commitment and professionalism of our teams, supported by targeted action plans. We are also accelerating technological simplification, retiring more than 200 legacy applications to improve efficiency and agility. Finally, sustainability stays fully embedded in our strategy. Fleet renewal remains a cornerstone of our transition plan with next generation aircraft now representing over 35% of the fleet alongside SAF blending significantly above regulatory requirements. Now moving on to slide four. Let me now turn to our full year 2025 performance. In a demanding environment, Air France KLM delivered strong execution translating into positive results on multiple fronts. We carried nearly 103 million passengers, which is up 5% year over year, and the first time since COVID that we have surpassed the 100 million passenger mark. Group revenues reached 33 billion euros, up 4.9% year on year, an all-time high for our group. We delivered an operating result of 2.0 billion, an improvement of 400 million euros compared with 2024, marking the highest operating result in our history. At the same time, we generated 1 billion euros in recurring adjusted operating free cash flow, up 800 million euros year on year, reflecting solid cash conversion. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen with net debt to EBITDA stable at 1.7 times, well within our target range, and equity increasing by 1.6 billion euros to 2.4 billion. Overall, 2025 demonstrates how discipline execution is translating into structurally stronger financial performance. Yes, beyond the numbers, it was also a year defined by significant commercial achievements. Slide five. Modernizing our fleet remains a top priority for value creation. The integration of new generation Airbus A320neo family aircraft at Transavia and KLM delivers a superior customer experience while significantly reducing our environmental footprint and operational costs. At the apex of the market, we continue to redefine luxury travel. Air France unveiled its new La Première experience, the ultimate expression of comfort and sophisticated service, and further enhanced the onboard offering. We strengthened our in-flight entertainment through new partnerships between Air France and Canon Plus and Apple TV Plus, bringing premium content to our long-haul customers and enriching the onboard experience. KLM is now among the first European airlines to offer free internet on flights within Europe, and simultaneously both Air France and KLM continue to expand and enhance their high-speed Wi-Fi offering to meet growing customer expectations. Our pursuit of excellence is equally reflected on the ground With the opening of our new Alphonse Chicago O'Hare Lounge and the refurbishment of our Boston Logan Lounge, we are offering an elegant environment anchored in French hospitality. Collectively, these initiatives demonstrate our unwavering commitment to strengthening the prestige and appeal of our brands at every touchpoint of the customer journey. Turning on to slide six, last year's Flying Blue, our loyalty program, celebrated its 20th anniversary. milestone that highlights the enduring strength of our loyalty program over two decades flying blue has evolved into one of europe's leading airline loyalty platforms now surpassing 30 million members worldwide growth has been particularly strong in recent years with membership doubling since 2022. today flying blue connects customers across 40 partner airlines more than 100 commercial partners and over a dozen co-branded credit cards embedding the program to members' everyday lives well beyond travel. This scale translates into both engagement and impact. In 2025 alone, 1.2 billion miles were donated by members to NGOs, representing roughly 2.5% of annual miles issued. Importantly, Flying Blue has been recognized by Point.me as the best airline loyalty program for the second consecutive year, a distinction that underscores the strength of our value proposition and the trust of our customers. More than a loyalty program, Flying Blue is a cornerstone of our commercial strategy, driving customer retention, premium engagement, and long-term value creation. Moving on now to slide seven, we continue to advance our premiumization strategy through targeted investments across the entire customer journey. Since 2018, our focus on cabin renewals, high-speed connectivity, and upgraded global lounges has significantly strengthened our value proposition. These efforts are now driving a structural shift toward a more premium revenue mix. In 2025, our top-tier cabins, La Première and Business, accounted for 28.1% of total revenue, up from 26.9% the previous year. Meanwhile, our premium economy offerings, branded Premium at Alphonse and Premium Comfort at KLM, a surge to reach 8% of revenue, showing significant growth over the last two years. Collectively, premium cabins now generate more than 36% of group revenue. This evolution is underpinned by strong commercial momentum. In 2025, La Première revenues grew by 17% and business revenues by 9%. Our premium economy segments saw even more dynamic growth, with revenue up 18%. Crucially, this expansion was achieved while maintaining stable load factors, demonstrating the robustness of demand for our mid-term premium offering. Additionally, our direct online revenue grew by 9%, further enhancing our distribution efficiency. This continued shift toward a higher value mix remains a key driver of profitability and long-term value creation. Our focus on a more personalized customer experience continues to drive exceptional growth in ancillary revenue across all our airlines. In 2025, ancillary revenue reached 2.1 billion euros, up 23% year-on-year, following 26% increase in 2024. Alphonse and KLM generated 1.2 billion euros in ancillary revenue, while Transavia contributed 800 million, reflecting solid momentum and continued expansion of revenue streams beyond traditional ticket sales across the group. Growth was broad-based across all segments. Feed selection delivered double-digit growth for the second consecutive year, supported by more dynamic and personalized options. At the same time, hand luggage performance strengthened further, particularly at Transavia, supporting continued revenue growth. This sustained expansion remains an important contributor to margin improvement and revenue diversification. Moving now to slide nine. We continue to make significant strides in our sustainability journey, underpinned by disciplined investments in fleet renewal and SAF. As highlighted earlier, new generation aircraft now represent 35% of our fleet. These aircraft are the primary lever of our decarbonization strategy, more fuel efficient, and contribute to reducing both CO2 emissions and noise footprint. In parallel, our SAF blend reached approximately 2.9% total fuel consumption, significantly above current regulatory requirements. Our efforts are also recognized externally. We received a gold medal from EcoVadis, placing the group in the top 98th percentile, and our CDP climate rating improved from a B rating to an A rating. Collectively, these achievements demonstrate measurable progress and reinforce Air France KLM's position among the leaders in sustainable aviation. Moving on now to slide 10. In cargo, more than 90% of bookings are now made through digital channels powered by our MyCargo portal, which has evolved into a comprehensive end-to-end service platform. The global rollout of our CRM360 system has been completed across our network, enabling more consistent, efficient, and customized customer support while opening the door to AI-enabled services. We were particularly proud to receive the Airline of Excellence in Europe Award from the World Air Cargo Awards, recognizing the quality of service delivered by our teams. Turning to engineering and maintenance, we secured more than 30 new contracts, bringing our total order book to 10.7 billion euros. We also continue to advance next generation technologies, including leap industrialization and new test cell capabilities, and expanded our industrial footprint with the opening of a new APU facility in Amsterdam. and our expertise was further recognized by the European MRO of the Year Award from Airline Economics. These achievements highlight how innovative and customer-centricity are strengthening our long-term competitiveness across both cargo and MRO businesses. With that, I'll now hand it over to Steven, who will walk you through the further detailed financial results. Over to Steven.

speaker
Stephen Zott
CFO, Air France-KLM

Yeah, thank you, Ben. And good morning, everybody. As you can imagine, despite all the rain, which we had the last days, I'm very happy to announce that we have broken the $2 billion ceiling in terms of current operating income. I think getting the margin up by another percent closer to the 8% margin in a very difficult geopolitical context is really an achievement. If we go to page 12, you see that our revenues are going up by 5%, so growing to $33 billion. That led also to the 6.1% margin, which we currently have. And if you look at the operating result, you see, of course, we had a big tailwind of our fuel price. But at the same time, we could increase our unit revenue by 1%, especially by our premiumization strategy on which I come back and which was explained by Ben. And then at the same time, we have really, really, really strict cost control in the company. We are now at the unit cost of 1.2% year over year. That is at the low end of the guidance where we started at the beginning of the year, which was between 1 to 3%. So we are very satisfied by getting our efficiency up and also to getting, let's say, all the transformation, really finding it back now in our results. On the net result, we have a record here with 1.8 billion. We have to be honest, there's 700 million related to unrealized foreign exchange results, but still 1.1 billion driving net results, driving up our equity, and that gives us more leverage also to take out this hybrid equity out of our balance sheet. If we go to page 13, you see the results per business. So very strong performance on the network. I come back later also in Q4, we see on the yield. This is driven especially by premiumization in a very strong North Atlantic and South American market. That is on the passenger side. On the cargo, it's a little bit a mixed bag, so it is more or less flattish. But don't forget, in Q1, we had a plus 16% related to, let's say, all the discussions in the U.S. about tariffs. And we ended Q4 with a minus 11% because the Q4 in 2024 was up 20% by the election. So there is a lot of impact quarter year over year. But all in all, despite all the tariffs and all the challenges over there, we were able to keep the unit revenues stable in our cargo segments. Then on Transavia, Transavia we grew by 15%. We had a site unit decrease of 1.7%. The results are down 52 million, which is split between Transavia Netherlands and Transavia France 50-50. There are several reasons. First, we take over the slots in our lease, so we grew significantly our capacity, and these routes need to mature before they become, let's say, profitable. Then second, we have a lot of transition costs related to that we move from the 737 to the A320s, which is not an easy transition and may be more difficult than what we expected ourselves. And last but not least, we had a very difficult summer. It was very hot, and it is less appetite to actually fly in to other places where the sun is shining if the sun is already shining in your backyard. So all in all, I think it was a complicated year for Transavia, but we keep on going, and I think we are also, if you look at the Q4 results, we see that we're getting a better momentum in place, and at the end of March, all the slots are transferred to Transavia and Orly, and we get to a more stable picture over there. On the maintenance, we are getting closer to the 5.6% margin, which we had in 2019. We grew our revenues externally by more than 10%. This is fully driven by our engine activity. It is really, really, really doing very strong. The complication is still on the components business where we should grow further our margins and where there's still an opportunity to go in the coming years. So all in all, the 6.1%, I'm pretty happy, and also, of course, with the 2004 results on the operating results. It's not 2005, which is my favorite bar in the egg, but we were getting close to that one. If we then go to the picture between Air France and KLM, so KLM, sorry, Air France benefited from the premiumization, and, of course, we had the Olympics impacted. Last year, so we grew our operating result by close to 400 million. On KLM, it is stable. We have more benefits actually from back on track, so it's at least 450 million, but we had a lot of headwinds. We had a triple increase of the tariffs, which costed us 100 million in landings and take-off charges, and around 150 million also on the revenues, because we have two charts higher charges towards Schiphol. The whole Schiphol environment cost us $250 million. I don't know if you saw the results of Schiphol, but they should be very happy with it. They have a margin of 26%, but unfortunately it's over the back of our airline. And then on top we had, let's say, more connecting passengers on KLM and especially long-haul connecting traffics from Africa and from Asia. there was a yield pressure in the low yielding segment, which is bigger at KLM than it is at Air France. If we then go to Flying Blue, I think it grows and it grows. As Ben already explained, the program is very successful. We grew another 18 million despite the fact that the dollar is weaker and that has a significant impact on our Flying Blue profitability, but we grow our volumes over there. So it's good to see that we get more and more positive results from this business segment. And there's more to come in 2026 because then we also fully implement in our P&L the new American Express deal. If we then move to page 15, so if you look at the cash flow, we are very happy that we are now having a recurring adjusted operating free cash flow above a billion. We still have these exceptionals which are coming in which cost us around 500 million related to the deferred social charges and the wage tax. But if you take that out and you take all the cash out which we have, we have a billion which we generate by the business. And if you look at the net debt, then you see that it's still going up with one billion. There's 300 million which is related to this hybrid convertible. And there is, again, the 500 million of these deferred social charges and the wage tax, so that's 800 million. And then you see that especially the new and modified lease that is quite high, that has to do with the introduction of the A320s and the A321s because we needed a lot of direct leases to start up and to transfer quickly the 737 transfer at Transavia and at KLM towards the A320. That has an impact of around 800 million. on this net debt and then on top of it we renewed our 787-9 operational leases which had an impact of more than 300 million. So this is an exceptional high number. We know that it will come down in the coming years and we are more or less let's say in the range of the 1.4, 1.5 billion for the years to come. So on page 16, you see that our strengthening of the balance sheet and also the simplification is working. We have now cash at hand of $9.4 billion, significant above our targeted liquidity level. We had the lowest credit, again, with the new issue of the bonds, which we did in January, which was very successful with the coupon below the 4%. And with that, we are continuing the simplification of the balance sheet. So we paid the Apollo bond, we paid the hybrid convertible, we did one issue of a hybrid, and we will pay the next Apollo bond, which is due in July 2026. And then we are simplifying our balance sheet, having less of this hybrid quasi equity in, and at the same time, the strong net result generation, which you have seen over last year, will strengthen the balance sheet to do that. So it's good to see that we have now an equity level of 2.4 billion, which is exactly at the pre-COVID level, and we will support that further with our net results. Let's then go to the quarter. So if we go to page 18, you see that we have less and more or less a stable result. We already indicated the impact on the cargo unit revenue, so we spoke about double-digit decline in cargo unit revenue terms, and we are, let's say, at the minus 11%. Don't forget, again, that we had an uptick of 21% in Q4 2024 in the unit revenues of the cargo. So the cargo unit revenues are still very strong, but, of course, there is these impacts of these tariffs and these elections in the U.S., So if you take that out, you see that we have improved further our results. First, on the unit revenue, again, I come back to this driven fully by the cargo. On the unit cost, you see that we reached a minus 1.1%, which is very promising, but we had some positive incidentals year over year. And then if you look at the net results, 600 million better. Again, there was this unrealized foreign exchange of 300 million, and also we benefit from the tax assets we have on our balance sheet, so we don't pay the full tax to, let's say, we don't pay the full income tax because we still can use 50% every time of our tax asset. If we then go to page 19, you see that the network, still the unit revenue going up with 2.2% excluding currency, and then there is the minus 11% on the cargo. So that stabilized the network result for this quarter. Transavia, despite the fact that they grew with 22% and a unit revenue decrease of 6%, you see that the operating result at least improved, which is not very easy in, let's say, in the winter months of October, November, December. So we are happy with the Transavia result, but we need to improve that further to make sure that we are getting to our profitability target of 8% in 2028. If we then go to maintenance, so I think in Q4, in Q4-24, we had a big benefit of delivering a lot of agents in Paris and in Amsterdam. So we are now actually stabilizing the result, but there is still room to improve in the coming quarters because we still have components contracts which we should make more profitable as we used to before the COVID. Then on page 20, so Air France results. slightly down, mainly driven by a higher fuel price and a higher ETS cost, and we should not forget that we had a very high unit revenue last year on the passenger business side over there. On KLM, we see that we improved our results. It's good to see that the unit cost reductions are really coming in now with the back-on-track program, and it's promising also to see forward in the years to come to get KLM at a better result in terms of operating margin than they are today. And then on Flying Blue, Twenty-four percent margin, 40 million again coming in, so very strong result also in Q4 on our flying blue, and it's promising also to see that for the quarters to come. If we then take a step back and we look at the world map, so it becomes a little bit like a broken record, to be honest, but you see the premium, the premium and North America and Latin America are driving up actually this unit revenue. So in the first and business class, you see that the load factor is up close to 1%, and the yields are up 4%. On the premium economy, we have 8% growth in capacity. There's a little bit of a mixed impact, which drives the load factor down, but still the yield is up 6.8%, so we see a unit revenue increase over there of 4%. And then the economy, that's more and more difficult. You see a 1.4% gap. We see, if you look at the map, and we come back on it later, you see that it is more difficult with all the traffic towards the U.S. to fill, let's say, the connecting traffic towards the U.S. The point-of-sale U.S. is doing very strong, so there's a lot of passengers coming from North America to Europe, but the other side is getting a bit more difficult. But all in all, I think if you look at North America with a load factor reduction of 0.5 and an increase of yield of 6%, it's still... very, very strong. Latin America, 91% load factor, a 10% capacity increase, and a yield increase of more than 2%, so also still very, very strong. And then if we move to the east, it's also good to see that the east is doing better, so we grew our capacity with 6%, but we see also that we have strong yields over there, and we see the yields which are strong in China, they are strong in Japan. They are strong in Korea. So everything that's Asia-related is very strong. On the Middle East, we took back capacity. So that has an impact, of course, on the yield. So we could also drive up the yield. So Asia is really, let's say, promising if you see where we were in the fourth quarter. And then in the middle of the picture, you see Africa. Africa is getting more difficult. It's more, let's say, less attractive for people from that region to go to North America, and you see that also if you look at the point of sale mix. So Africa is actually not a big part of those flows on the North Atlantic, but they are down year over year, and if you look at their percentage with 23%. So all this growth of the U.S. is actually coming from the U.S. point of sale, which is up 3%. Europe you see down with 2%, and also Asia and India are down with 4% to 5%. Connecting traffic towards the U.S. is getting more difficult if you compare it with a year ago. And then, last but not least, Transavia I already spoke about, but the short and the medium mall, still difficult. We have flattish yields, but we know that the costs are going up there. We have the increase of the soft costs. We have the increase of the ETS costs because we are losing ETS rights, and you see also that the load factor is down 1.5%. Then let's go to the unit cost. So you can imagine that we, after a long, long, long, long period, we had for the first time unit cost decrease. So that was very, very good. Let's first start at the last time. You see the productivity brings in 2%. So that is really a strong indicator that our transformation and all the programs we have in our companies are working. You see also that the fleet renewal brings 0.6% in fuel efficiency. And then you see what we call other, 0.6%. And we had a lot of, and I don't know if you remember, in Q4-24, our unit cost went up with 4%. We had a lot of incidentals in that period. So I think if you take it all together, it was $60 million. And we have a lot of good news this year, actually, in our unit cost. So I think if you take them all together, you talk about a range of $100 million, which is impacting, actually, is unit cost performance, but all in all, I think the left side shows that we are doing very strong in keeping the transformation going and delivering the unit cost improvements which we see in our company. And then, of course, there's the premiumization, but that drives also up the unit revenue, so that has an impact of 0.6%, and we still have these charges in ATC and airport charges which are hurting us for 0.7%. Let's then go to the year 2026. So it started not very good. We had terrible weather in Amsterdam that had an impact of $90 million in the first quarter. If you look at that $90 million, around, let's say, 80% is related to KLM and Transavia Netherlands, and the other part is related to Transavia France and Air France, so especially a high impact on KLM. If you look at the unit revenues which we have, you see that the unit revenues in the first quarter, excluding ancillaries, et cetera, so it's the NTR, is down 0.4%. Air France is still at 1.5%, less impacted also by the snow. But if you take KLM, they had a unit revenue of minus 3.8%. If you take out the snow, you come to plus 0.5%. And if you would apply that also to the total unit revenue, we are up 1.1%. So still the demand is there. We had a hiccup, let's say, in the operations in Amsterdam, which cost us quite some money. But it's good to see that the underlying trend is still very positive. And if you look at the forward bookings, it's more or less in sync. What we have seen the last quarter, we are below what we were the year before. But on the long haul, you see that we already – there's only 1%. And there's always for us, let's say, a tradeoff between yields and load factor. And we have a very aggressive revenue management manager to driving up the yields in our system. Let's then go to page 25. So the fuel bill, $6.9 billion in 2025. 6.9 billion in 2026, so nothing is really happening, but the yet fuel price, because we grow our capacity, I will come back on that later, is still coming down, and it's good to see that we have already hedged 62% of that volume. And then you see on 26 we are increasing the tenor of our hedges, so instead of hedging six quarters ahead, we are hedging eight quarters ahead. If you start at the quarter, and that brings that we are now having total exposure hedged of close to 90% of a bond a year consumption. I think this is giving us robustness in this very, let's say, dynamic world, you could say, also in terms of fuel price. So we are getting closer to our European competitors, and I think we are very close to the bonds which their head office is in London. If we then go to the capacity outlook, You see that we are reducing, I think, compared to what we initially thought during the investor day. We are now at a 3% to 5%. We still will grow the long haul, which is our, let's say, backbone of our profitability with 4%. The short and the medium haul, we keep that stable. We are not going there anymore. We are trying actually to improve our results, and we are keeping the capacity stable and for the next year. And then Transavia still going up with 10%, mainly coming from upcoaching of the fleet. And at the same time, we still have a quarter to transfer the activities in Orly from Air France towards Transavia. So that results in a capacity outlook between 3% to 5%. On page 28, you see our total outlook. So the unit cost is guided at 0.02%. So there is the premiumization in which is 0.5%. We still have higher ATC cost, by the way. We still see high cost on Schiphol for another quarter. So that drives us that our unit cost, despite the fact that we had a very good unit cost even down in the fourth quarter, that we are between 0 to 2%. for the year to come, and as we are disciplined, as we were this year, we will be getting more to the left than to the right side of that picture. But it all depends on the completion factor and, of course, all the things which we need to further implement on our transformation, because there is still inflation in the system. But it's good to see we have the CLAs actually now in. We closed the NLOP. for Air France, and we have the CLAs in place for KLM for the majority of the staff. And then on the net CAPEX, you see a $3 billion, which is in line with what we had last year. So we are moving, and we are still disciplined on our CAPEX, although we still want to renew our fleet. And then on our leverage, between 1.5 and 2, and we are now at 1.7, so we are quite comfortable with that. which drives me to our outlook. So we keep this same ambition. So we want a margin above 8%. We want a significant positive adjusted operating financial, which you see that we're already realizing in 2025. If you take out this repayment of the wage tax and the social charges in France, we keep on focusing on reducing our unit costs. It is not easy in this inflationary environment. We will keep on going. to reduce that because that will improve our robustness in our business. And we are aiming on our leverage to have an investment grade for Fitch. We already have it, and we are very much in the safe zone over there. And we see that on SAP we are moving really on the right tracks towards that investment grade. So we guide for 2028. We never guide in the year where we live because the circumstances are too uncertain to guide for it. So, this is a nice trajectory from the current 6% towards 8% in 2028. With that, I give the floor to my chef, Ben.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-

Investor presentation