Air France 777-300ER. By Rob Finlayson

Air France­-KLM (AF-KLM) incurred a second-quarter net loss of €895 million ($ 1.1 billion), significantly widened from a €196 million net deficit in the year-ago period. It noted that much of the net loss can be attributed to one-time charges, particularly those related to its cost restructuring program and accounting changes.

The airline group’s second-quarter operating loss was €66 million, more than halving a €145 million operating deficit in the 2011 June quarter. AF-KLM chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta said in a statement, “Even though these second quarter [operating] results represent a year-on-year improvement, they remain in negative territory. These results demonstrate how crucial the success of the Transform 2015 [cost restructuring] plan is to the turnaround of the group [ ATW Daily News, June 21 ]. In an increasingly uncertain global economic environment compounded by oil price and exchange rate volatility, an improvement in our productivity and costs is even more necessary.”

AF-KLM, which boosted second-quarter revenue 4.5% to €6.5 billion, said it is maintaining “strict capacity control.” Second-quarter group passenger capacity was up just 0.3% year-over-year to 67.46 billion ASMs, while traffic heightened 2.4% to 55.82 billion RPKs. Load factor was 82.8%, up 1.7 points.

With the difficult second quarter following a shaky first quarter ( ATW Daily News, May 8 ), AF-KLM’s half-year 2012 net loss was €1.26 billion, more than doubling a €564 million net deficit in the prior-year period.