Air France-KLM said Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic “severely impacted” its earnings in 2020, pushing it deep into a net loss of €7.1 billion.

The previous year, the Franco-Dutch airline had booked bottom-line profit of €290 million. 

“2020 tested the Air France-KLM group with the most severe crisis ever experienced by the air transport industry,” chief executive Benjamin Smith said in a statement.

The airline said group revenues plunged by nearly 60 per cent to €11.1 billion as passenger numbers plummeted 67 per cent to 28.8 million.

Furthermore, there was no sign of an immediate improvement for the sector, it said.

“After a positive Christmas... travel restrictions were tightened in France, the Netherlands and worldwide, having a negative impact on traffic in the first quarter of 2021,” the statement said.

“Due to the lockdown and travel restrictions still in place, the group anticipates a challenging first quarter of 2021,” it continued.

“There is limited visibility on the demand recovery curve as customer booking behaviour is much more short-term oriented and also highly dependent on the imposed travel restrictions,” Air France-KLM said.

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