Good morning, and welcome to the Air France-KLM conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Benjamin Smith and Steven Zaat. Please go ahead, sir.
Okay, thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this presentation of the Air France-KLM Group's results for the third quarter of 2022. I'm joined by Steven Zaat, our CFO, Anne Rigail, Air France CEO, and Marjan Rintel, KLM CEO. As usual, I will start by presenting the highlights of the quarter. Then I will give the floor to Steven for a detailed presentation of our results and the outlook for the quarter before concluding the presentation myself and opening the Q&A session. First, I'd like to thank all of my colleagues across our airlines and business units for their hard work and dedication over the last three months. They did their very best to accommodate our customers throughout the summer season, which proved particularly busy and challenging this year. Slide 3.
Before diving into the group's performance, I'd like to start by looking at the airline industry at a macro level. Just trying to get the slides going here, sorry. The graph on the slide shows that overall traffic to and from Europe for the industry as a whole has been catching up with capacity, thus closing the load factor gap with 2019. As expected, summer demand has been strong after a gradual easing of health restrictions and customers returned in great numbers, putting the entire airline value chain under pressure. For the remainder of the year, the expectation for the industry is that capacity will continue to increase, albeit at a slightly slower pace, in line with the evolution of demand and in spite of a still volatile market and geopolitical conditions. Turning now to slide 4.
Air France-KLM has been preparing for months for this crucial summer season, and I'm proud of the way the group has managed to achieve its roadmap for this period. Despite the operational difficulties across our global network in an industry-wide context of staff shortages, severe disturbances, and local strikes affecting some key industry players and airport service providers, we were able to limit the number of late cancellations. This is largely thanks to the outstanding work of our colleagues across all our airlines and business units. They worked hard to deliver the best services to our customers, and I would like to thank them again for their commitment and dedication. Overall, our group's airlines were more resilient than our European competitors in maintaining their capacity during the summer.
If we take a closer look, operations in France have proven more robust compared to other countries, despite isolated disruptions in Paris. KLM, however, was operating in adverse conditions, with Amsterdam Schiphol Airport requesting a capacity reduction in July. We worked hard to mitigate these disruptions, for instance, by prioritizing delayed customers over on-time performance or by facilitating rebooking to manage such capacity restrictions. During Q3, we incurred costs for these disruptions to the tune of EUR 60 million, slightly lower than in Q2, essentially in the form of compensation to our customers to limit the negative impact on their travel as much as possible. Additionally, the capacity restrictions imposed at Schiphol and strikes in France resulted in EUR 225 million in missed revenues. Now moving to slide 5. All in all, Air France-KLM delivered strong results in Q3.
The group posted an operating result of just slightly over EUR 1 billion above its 2019 level before the pandemic. This result performance was mostly driven by favorable travel demand, which our airlines were able to anticipate and manage thanks to the ramp up of capacity throughout the year. With load factors reaching 88% over the quarter, we carried almost 50% more passengers than in the same period last year, bringing us closer to our 2019 levels. This combination of strong capacity increases and higher load factors translated to a sharp revenue growth of +78%, bringing quarterly revenues to EUR 8.1 billion, EUR 400 million more than in Q3 2019.
Our adjusted operating free cash flow amounted to EUR 290 million, thanks to our strong EBITDA generation of EUR 1.7 billion, which fully funded working capital, CapEx, and lease payments. This good operational performance and solid cash flow generation allowed us to post a positive net result of EUR 460 million, which will contribute to further strengthening our balance sheet. Our cash position remains solid with EUR 12.2 billion in cash, and we reduced our net debt by more than EUR 2.3 billion since the beginning of the year. Now moving on to slide six. I also wanted to give you an update on the long-haul network, which continues its upward momentum, thanks to a strong summer demand.
In terms of load factor for the premium cabins, such as first and business class, I'm very pleased to say that we are now above the levels of 2019, driven by high yield leisure demand. The evolution of the load factor for economy and premium economy was also positive as it continued to ramp up throughout the quarter and almost reached its 2019 level. Corporate travel revenue and traffic continued to grow gradually throughout the quarter with a positive yield dynamic. To slide seven. I'd like now to focus for a moment on an important strategic achievement this quarter, the great progress we have made on the optimization of our networks out of Paris Orly Airport. The full restructuring of our Orly slots will soon be completed.
More than 40% of our slots operated by Air France and HOP! have now been transferred to our lower unit cost airline, Transavia, which took over some French domestic service and commenced future medium-haul long-term greater profit potential routes. Overall, this repositioning of our slot portfolio saw the share of short-haul domestic flights decreasing from 61% of the total portfolio during summer 2019 to 38% in summer 2022 to the benefit of medium-haul flights. Although we're not yet at full maturity, we expect significant profitability improvement of transferred slots with EUR 30 million improvement already yielded on our point-to-point domestic service to date. This restructuring effort helped Air France safeguard its slot portfolio while adapting its network to new French regulations, which ban domestic flights on routes offering direct trains of less than two and a half hours.
Further optimization of the Orly slot portfolio will continue, with domestic profitability remaining a priority. Now on to slide 8. To conclude this introduction, let's now take a closer look at the performance and achievements of our airline and business units. Starting with our passenger business, I'm very pleased to announce that for the first time since the beginning of the COVID crisis, both Air France and KLM have returned to double-digit operating margins. This solid performance is of course linked to the strong rebounding demand, but I also see it as a result of the continued efforts made by the two airlines to always remain the preferred option for customers. To do this, they are constantly innovating and reinventing themselves to offer a truly differentiated experience to customers.
These efforts were reflected again in this quarter with the launch of the new KLM Premium Comfort class and the award of Best Airline for the West European region to Air France by Skytrax. Transavia is also enjoying strong momentum with capacity well above 2019 levels. The French arm is well on track with its growth plan, with a capacity close to 50% higher than in 2019, thanks to the expansion of its fleet. After signing a strategic partnership agreement with CMA CGM before the summer, our cargo teams are now actively working on shaping the setup of our future cooperation with CMA CGM. This strategic commercial partnership is expected to generate significant revenue synergies, including the joint design of the full freighter networks and enhanced products and service mix opportunities.
To accelerate our efforts in decarbonization, the cargo teams have also launched a new option for their customers, allowing them to adjust the level of sustainable aviation fuel used for each shipment they book through our proprietary banking system. Customers are given a choice of four contribution levels, which will allow them to proportionally reduce their contribution to CO2 emissions when booking. Finally, maintenance continues to enjoy a positive momentum with a growing number of shop visits and new MRO contracts with well-known airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, ITA, and China Airlines. The official signature of a CFMI branded service agreement for LEAP-1A and LEAP-1B engines will see Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance provide the full scope of LEAP maintenance, repair and overhaul services for operators worldwide. This allows the group to scale up its presence on the biggest engine MRO market.
After this overall summary of our Q3 performance, I now give the floor over to Steven, who will go into more detail about our results for the quarter.
Merci, Ben. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking the time to listen to us. I repeat again, we live in remarkable times. It's good to see that the financial recovery is continuing in our industry despite all the operational problems and the very high jet fuel price. In this context, we were able to outperform the results of 2019, where we still have 11% less capacity in, and knowing that we cannot fly the real market demand. I'm very happy to see this financial recovery going faster than our own expectations despite the turmoil, and that we continue to deliver on the transformation despite the pressure on costs by inflation. Let's go to page 10, and let's look first at the top line.
If we look at the top line, and I will later explain the change versus 2021, we see that we are already EUR 500 million higher than before COVID in the Q3 results. EUR 500 million. EUR 200 million is coming from passenger business revenues, very strongly supported by high yield. If you compare that to 2019, we talk about yields RASK of 22% and RASKs even of 28%. Very strong yield in which we actually are capable to pay off, let's say, the higher fuel price. The second positive element is the cargo, EUR 300 million more than where we were in 2019. On top, we have a EUR 200 million higher Transavia revenues, also driven by very strong yields at these three business segments.
The only area where we still are behind 2019 is in our maintenance business, where we still need to recover our order book. Let's say we lost some customers due to bankruptcies. The fleet is phased out and we need to recover that turnover. I will come back on that later when we discuss the business segments. If you then go to the fuel bill up by EUR 1.5 billion, it is amazing. Mainly driven by a very high jet fuel price. It's EUR 1.2 billion coming from the jet fuel. Luckily, we have hedges in place for EUR 200 million actually covering part of that fuel price increase. Of course, the negative development on the US dollar, which also added another EUR 100 million to our fuel bill.
Out of this EUR 1.5 billion, there's only EUR 300 million related to capacity growth compared to 2001. On the salary costs, the salary costs are going up compared to 2021. Mainly driven for 50% actually that we don't have the NOW anymore, so all the furlough schemes in the Netherlands. We have a very limited Activité Partielle that runs only EUR 12 million. In total, we lost around EUR 250 million of furlough. That is actually explaining 50%. Of course, we need to attract new FTEs to let's say support us in our operations. We have an FTE increase of or staff increase of 2,000, mainly at KLM and at Transavia France.
We have the CLA restructuring on KLM, which added to the labor cost of EUR 13 million. We have an increase in activity which brings more than EUR 150 million, which is actually related to the fact that we have to pay the pilots and the cabin crew because we fly more, and we have less, let's say, inactivity. It's good news actually that we pay for this higher activity, our staff. On the other operating expenses, I will come back to it on the unit cost. We have a lot of pressure coming in from the airport, also from the outstations, et cetera. I come back to that later when we will take a deeper dive on the unit cost.
In the end, we have an EBITDA already above the 2019 level. If you look at the operating result, we are having a result above EUR 1 billion, which we didn't reach in 2019, indeed bringing us to a margin of 12.6% versus 11.9% in 2019. Of course, that is very important for us. We see now finally a strong positive net income close to EUR 500 million, in which there even is a EUR 300 million impact of the dollar. There is, let's say, a negative impact of the dollar on the balance sheet, which is not a cash out, but which hampers actually our net income. If you would exclude that, we would even be closer to EUR 800 million in net results.
Let's go then to the business by business line. Let's first start at the passenger business. A capacity growth of 29% and a unit revenue growth of 55%, and that's even excluding the impact of the stronger US dollar. If you would take that, then it would be close to 60%. Very strong unit revenue performance, which is actually coming from two parts. One is the load factor. We had a load factor of 65% last year, and we are now having a load factor of 88%, which as Ben already explained, is, let's say, very close to the 2019 levels. That brings in the in the unit revenue, 24% out of the 55%.
Then on top, we have a yield, which is up 18%, which explains, let's say, the other part of our unit revenue. It's good to see that we can grow capacity. We're filling up further our planes, and on top of it, we have a stronger price, especially to cover all the higher costs coming, especially from the fuel. Going to the cargo business. On the cargo business, we already expected, of course, that our unit revenue would go down. We have now more passenger business planes, and these passenger business planes brings additional cargo capacity. But we know that we fly them with a lower load factor than what we do, for instance, on the freighter. Especially in the summer, we are looking for, let's say, more passenger business-friendly destinations than cargo destinations.
An increase of capacity of 16% related to the increase of the bellies. We have, let's say, a drop of 19% in unit revenue. First, the load factor goes from 62% last year to 46%, which is most in line what we usually have. If you see all the bellies, a belly is, let's say, between 40% and 50% in load factor. That is, I think, the very good news. You see that also the yield is holding strong and it's even up compared to 2021.
The yield, the price, per ATK is up by 14% compared to 2019, which was a bit, to be honest, a surprise because we expected usually by the mix of cargo that would actually deliver a lower yield because the freighters brings in higher yield than our belly capacity. If you take that all together, we have an operating result of our network of EUR 851 million. It is an increase of EUR 864 million. It's amazing. With a margin of 12%. Very strong results at both carriers, which I will explain later. We go to our low-cost segment, Transavia. Capacity up 28%, unit revenue up by 32%. The same kind of dynamics as we see on the network. The load factor is up from 78% to 89%.
We get closer to, let's say, the normal levels in our Transavia business, which is slightly above the 90% in this season, and at the same time, the yield increased with 16%. Yield and load factor contributing by stronger revenues on top of the capacity increase. EUR 123 million, bringing an operating margin of 14% in this, the Q3 is always our best quarter also for Transavia, also for the network, but especially on the low-cost segment. Then on the maintenance side, as I already explained, we need to recover from the crisis. It's good to see that we increased our revenues with 39%, driven by the current contracts, so we have more flight hours from our customers, and our engine shops are completely full.
That is good news. On top of it, you see that we signed also new contracts. We signed 5 big engine contracts in this quarter and 6 big component contracts. That is also to restore our revenue trajectory in the coming years. The 13% operating margin, better than where we were in 2019, is very promising also for the period to come. Let's take a dive into the performance of both airlines. Indeed, as Ben already said, I want to give a big compliment to all the staff for this good result. It was a very challenging summer, especially for KLM. At Schiphol, it was quite a challenge to, let's say, achieve and to make sure that we fly the capacity we want to fly.
Even we were limited, as you know, by the restrictions at Schiphol. Both airlines are above the 10%, so that is very good to see that both carriers are performing above the 10%. You see more or less the same kind of dynamic. If you go to Air France, you see the capacity is going up with 42%. And at the same time, you see also that the unit revenue is increasing. The 17% additional load factor, we come from 71% last year to 88%, and there's a yield increase of 16%. Bringing operating result of EUR 570 million, which is already above the 2019 levels and bringing in a margin of 11%.
If you go to KLM, you see that the capacity is up less, but KLM was ahead actually in putting capacity in place compared to Air France. The capacity is up with only 14%, of course, also hampered by the fact that we have restrictions at Schiphol, and we did that with a load factor increase of 26%. There was more load factor available for KLM to fill the planes. On top of it, there was a yield of 15%. Both carriers on the revenue side developing very well. We see that Air France, you see especially it's kicking in now, the structural cost savings in Air France, reducing further the gap between the two carriers. The gap is now 3%.
Of course, we know that KLM was hampered severely by the impact of the Schiphol restrictions. Both carriers, given the current circumstances, has a very good operating performance. On the capacity on page 13, we show the capacity and the load factor development. We are getting now, let's say, to levels in the network of 85%. But the best news is that especially the load factor is keeping up. In the total network, we end now in September with 87% load factor, where we were in 2019 at 88%. Long-haul doing very strong, close to 90% in terms of load factor. On the short and medium-haul, excluding Transavia, we were in Q3 at 84%.
A slight, small gap still compared to 2019, where we were at 87%. Transavia, we boost up, of course, the capacity over there. You see that we are still able to have a load factor close to the 19%. I think we put in place what we could. We were more restricted by the airports. If we could have flown further, we would further increase also the capacity in the third quarter. We were sure we would have filled these planes because there's a very strong demand in the market in this quarter, but also actually what we see for the period ahead. Let's take a look on the results per region.
Let's start at the most beautiful part, at least in profitability, which is our North America segment. The North America segment, we are already above the 2019 levels in terms of capacity. We have a load factor of 91%, and we have a very strong yield. It's 25% up, coming of a very high willingness to travel to Europe from the U.S. and of course, also helped by the dollar. The very strong pricing in the U.S. brings this very high yield. Another exemplary that our JV with Delta and Virgin is working over there. Also, good to mention, to give a little bit of color, that you see that the premium segment is doing very well.
The first class, we got a 70% load factor, which is 24% up compared to where we were in 2019, and with a yield 24% up than in 2019. In the business class, we were four points above the 2019 levels in load factor. On South America, you see that there is an imbalance between supply and demand. We see that a lot of South American carriers have restructured their companies. They do that through Chapter 11, and that reduced the number of planes, but also the number of staff. It's difficult for them to bring back that capacity upon which we profited. We had a yield of 38% compared to 2019, and a load factor of 92%.
The only reason that we don't have all the seats and that we have certain destinations which we still don't want to fly because they are not profitable enough. We fly where we can make the profits, and we do that with a very high yield of 38% compared to 2019. On the Caribbean, you see that we are benefiting from the strong demand from the Dutch and the French home market for the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. We grew our capacity with 22%, still with a load factor close to 90% and a yield increase of 8%. We are benefiting there from the big demand we see for these islands. On Africa, always, let's say, a strong core of our performance.
We are still 4% down, but we are very thin in capacity, sorry, compared to 2019, with very strong demand for East and West Africa. South Africa is still, let's say, a little bit weaker. With load factors of 87% and yields of 21%, we can be very proud of this result. It was actually stable, actually, also during our COVID, much more stable than the other regions. Then let's say my least favorite part at this moment, which is still Asia, where we are still having the restrictions in China, in Japan in Q3. We are at a level 54% lower in ASKs. The load factor is doing well, 86%, and also the yield is exploding over there to 47%.
I prefer that we have no restrictions, that we can fly the planes, even if it will cost, if it will cost something on the yield side. Let's see how that will develop, especially, let's say, in 2023, when these markets will opening up. Probably, we don't know, of course, the exact timing, but let's say at least we expect somewhere in 2023 that these markets will open up. Coming back, segment per segment, long-haul, very strong performance, still 85% ASKs and due to the restrictions in Asia, a load factor close to 90% and a yield 28%. If you then take into account that we also have a very strong cargo, you can imagine the profitability on that segment.
On the short and medium-haul, still only, despite that actually we have no restrictions, we are still at 86% of the capacity. Load factor getting back to the 2019 levels, so around 85% and a yield up with 18%. In total, a yield of 24%, still 85% capacity, and a load factor close to the 19%. On the unit cost. I would like to stress that despite the circumstances, we are still having a very strong unit cost performance. The unit cost is up close to 3%, while capacity is 11% below 2019. A big compliment I would make to all the teams that we are able to still keep this unit cost at this level despite the fact that there is inflation pressure in the market.
We don't have to forget that we paid a lot on customer compensation for all the disruptions. Ben just explained the EUR 60 million. If you look, what are driving up actually the unit cost, there was an increase of labor cost of KLM, which we already explained. On the airport side, we saw the tariff at Schiphol going up at 9%, and we see a charge increase of the air traffic control, actually in Europe. On top, we have very high inflation costs on the outstations. They are up with 17%, which is partly coming from a higher dollar. We see that it is already kicking in in this result. Then coming back on the customer compensation, where there is 1% up compared to 2019, if you look in the unit cost.
In the total unit cost, it represents 1% of our unit cost development. On the right side, you see that staff costs, we are still below the 2019 levels. We have a 16% decrease in staff in Air France, if you exclude the growth in Transavia France and 11% at KLM. The continuation and the successful transformation program on Air France, we are able to reduce significantly, let's say, our staff. At the same time, at KLM, you see that we are in line with the capacity decrease for this quarter. Let's talk about cash, because that is part, that's a big part of my job. If you see the cash development, you see that we had a very strong Q3 again.
Ben already explained EUR 300 million up in terms of cash, despite the fact that in this quarter we burned, as we call, EUR 800 million of tickets. We flew more tickets than we sold tickets. Despite this working capital development, we were able to have EUR 300 million cash, which brings us for the year-to-date figure at a cash level of EUR 2.5 billion. Of course, the change in working capital is amazing. We're restoring our outstanding ticket and you see that the working capital development is EUR 2.2 billion year-to-date, for a main part driven by the increase of the advanced ticket sales for EUR 1.5 billion. Of course, when you start growing your capacity, you get more trade payable, so you still have to pay some bills.
That's EUR 800 million in that number. That brings us that actually our net debt is now from EUR 8.2 billion to EUR 6 billion, which is, let's say, at least, let's say, if you compare where we were before COVID, we are getting close. We can't forget we still have some items in the working capital to pay, that is related, first of all, to the wage tax in the Netherlands. I think I already explained it. There's still EUR 1.5 billion to pay. We still have also the Air France to pay on the franchise, what we didn't pay during the crisis for EUR 1 billion on the Air France side.
still very positive development on the cash, and we have cash at hand at this moment of EUR 12.3 billion, which also gives us room now to pay earlier back the state guarantee loan on the French side. I come back on that in the next slide. If you look at our trajectory, and I go a little bit back where we started. Of course, we had, let's say, big support during the crisis from the state and this, with the state guaranteed loans. We started actually to pay back these loans in December 2021. We started with EUR 500 million on the Air France side. We had EUR 4 billion of French state guaranteed loans. We reduced that from EUR 4 billion to EUR 3.5 billion last year.
KLM paid this just before December, their EUR 900 million. KLM is totally paid back the full RCFs and the Dutch state loan which are in. That's another EUR 900 million. Now we are aiming to pay another EUR 1 billion of the state guarantee loan on Air France. First, we have a very strong cash, and we see also that interest rates are creeping up. If you look at our total gross debt, 40% of our debt is floating, and out of that 40%, 30% is related to the state guarantee loan. We want to reduce that exposure. If we pay EUR 1 billion back to the banks, then we are at 30%. For the planes, actually, most of our plane financing is done on a fixed rate.
We fix this rate when the rates were very low, which is very favorable for the period to come. We are still aiming for possible hybrid bonds. We are eyeing on the market for the exact right moment to repay further on the hybrid which we have with the French state. There's still EUR 900 million to go on the French state hybrid, and we are aiming to put EUR 1.2 billion in hybrids into the market. It can be hybrid convertible or straight hybrids. We are ongoing in our restoration of our group negative equity to, let's say, get as soon as possible to a positive net equity.
We do that by net profit generation and further asset monetization through Class A equity projects, where we are working on at this moment. Then we go to the outlook. Let's first go to Q4. We reduced our capacity outlook for Q4. We had a higher outlook last quarter. This is actually due to the imposed capacity ban on departing passengers at Schiphol. For the rest, we keep the capacity as we planned, and we are then at 85% if we compare it to 2019. For Transavia, we were already above 100, and we will be at 140, especially due to the Transavia France growth in the fourth quarter. We still see very healthy yields for the winter season.
If you go to the right of the page, you see that for Q4, we already sold three-fourths of our tickets. It's very close to what we are used to in 2019. We were then at 77%. On the long haul, we already sold 75% of all the capacity which we planned. For the first quarter, we are aiming actually at a level of 90% capacity. We are restoring further closer to 2019. If you look at the long haul, you see we are even at 91%, and we have already sold one-third of these tickets. For the short and medium haul, it's a bit different. It's a later booking market.
We sold 60%, which is more or less, let's say, in line with what we see in new behavior that people are a little bit later booking than what they did before. Compared to 2019, it was 65%. We see still a very strong booking climate. For Q1, that's always difficult to say because people are not booking very much ahead for this market. Still, we sold 14% already from this capacity. Then on Transavia, we are going to capacity levels of over 140% in Q4 and Q1 2023. We sold already two-thirds for Q4 and 21% for Q1. Still, despite the fact that we increased significantly the capacity, we are able to, let's say, quite fill this capacity.
Of course, not at the same level as 2019, but we are 40% higher in capacity. We need to fill this capacity in the period to come. On fuel hedge, yes, it is every day another day. It goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down. Today, the oil is above $95 per barrel. What you see is that the jet fuel is coming in at a little bit lower levels than what we have seen in Q2 and Q3 in the market. You see that there is a little bit releasing pressure on the fuel price. We were hedged above the 70% up to now, and we have hedged already 70% for Q4.
If you go for 2023, it's not on the slide, but we hedged already 32%. For the first quarter, 55% is hedged. For the second quarter, more than 40% is already hedged. That brings that in total, we have a benefit this year of $1 billion due to our hedge policy. If we then go to the outlook, on the capacity, I think I already guided you. Then on the operating result, we expect an operating result above EUR 900 million based on the fuel forward curve of last Friday. We always use the Fridays to calculate, let's say, weekly our fuel bill. It's a weekly process we have. The last known calculation, including hedges, are included in that number. Of course, it is under the currently foreseen circumstances.
We think we will be above EUR 900 million for the full year, which is quite an achievement after, let's say, the difficult period we have in 2020 and 2021, that we see that we are recovering now to results which we were used to. Of course, it's still not above EUR 1 billion. It's not yet at the 7%-8% margin, but we are going faster actually in our trajectory than what we had in our trajectory before. On the capital expenditure side, we had a guidance of EUR 2.5 billion. We reduce it to EUR 2.3 billion related to the investment delay for the 787-10s at KLM, which will move to 2023, and also by a reduced ground CapEx spend. That's it for my side, Ben. I give the floor back to you.
Thanks, Steven. Moving now on to page 23. I'd like to share with you another initiative that we took on our environmental roadmap. We've just announced the signing of two multi-year SAF purchase agreements with Neste and DG Fuels. These contracts will lead to a supply of a total volume of 1.6 million tons of SAF by 2030, and constitute a further step for the group to achieve its 10% SAF incorporation targets by this date, with 3% already secured. Both agreements lead to an average reduction of 80% in CO2 emissions and are fully compliant with a strict sourcing policy that the group has put in place. They do not compete with human food or animal feed supply and are not derived from palm oil.
By increasing use and demand, Air France-KLM aims to play its part in advancing the commercial scale of SAF production for broad adoption by 2030. These contracts are an important step in the right direction. Now moving to page 24. We have delivered strong revenues, more than EUR 500 million above 2019 levels, with capacity gradually increasing and load factors close to pre-COVID levels. This ongoing recovery has led to a significant improvement of our profitability and of our operating margin, now at 12.6%, which is again higher than 2019's, which stood at 12%. We've also continued to deliver on our financial roadmap with a solid cash position and a lower net debt, down to EUR 2.3 billion compared to last December.
Moving forward, we intend to continue our deleveraging efforts with the partial and early redemption of the state-backed PGE loans for Air France, amounting to EUR 1.5 billion out of the EUR 3.5 billion outstanding. As already described, we have executed on our decarbonization roadmap with a concrete and major step forward on SAF long-term purchase agreements. Now looking ahead, the world of the industry's environment remains challenging, with geopolitical tensions, macroeconomic uncertainties, and volatile markets. In such conditions and leveraging on what we have achieved, we need to continue transforming and adapting our business. It is essential that we continue optimizing our operating model for better efficiency and resilience. We will achieve this through genuine and transparent dialogue with our employees.
While all have shown considerable amounts of dedication and commitment and are an integral part to delivering on our financial performance goals and on our sustainability roadmap. Thank you, and we are now available to open up our Q&A session.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for a question. We will take our first question from Ruxandra Haradau-Doser. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Congratulations on the strong performance. Three questions, please. First, Schiphol was the most or one of the most disrupted airports in Europe this year. What was the overall financial impact on KLM from these disruptions in the nine months this year? And do you expect an improvement of operations at Schiphol Airport in 2023? Second, what is your expectation for the cargo business in Q4? Third, could you please provide an update on the discussions related to ITA? There are several other airlines in restructuring for sale in Europe. What is your view on consolidation in the European airline sector? And do you expect 2023 to be a decisive year in this respect? Thank you very much.
Sorry, we have to distribute a bit the questions among ourselves. Sorry for a small delay. If you go to Schiphol first, as you can see on page four, you see that we have EUR 60 million in customer compensation. Of which EUR 30 million was for the Air France Group and EUR 30 million was for the KLM group. Thirty million is from that part for KLM or for Schiphol. If you look at the missed revenues, the EUR 225 million, there's EUR 145 million for KLM and EUR 55 million for Transavia Netherlands. It is EUR 200 million out of this EUR 225 million. The improvement, I will give that later to Marjan. I will come back on the cargo.
Yeah, the cargo, we still see that actually we expect already that of course, the market will go down. We still see that the yield is still holding. Of course, we bring in more capacity with our belly planes. Actually we see the same kind of environment as Q3. You know, the cargo is always very difficult to predict. The most of the cargo will be shipped, especially in November also, when it's just before the Christmas season. We still have to see it. There's not a long-term booking market as we have in passenger business, but so far, so good, I would say. Marjan.
These disruptions at Schiphol Airport will hold at least until December, hopefully ending March. Schiphol authorities announced they need 800 extra employees at security to solve these problems. There will be another waiting moment in December to see if we can increase our capacity. There's a new CEO in Ruud Sondag, we're looking forward to join him and execute all the plans in place very fast.
and consolidation in Europe, there is an exclusivity in place for the Certares-led bid, which we are a part of, and that is until the end of October, so just coming up. Now as you know, the Italian market has always been difficult, so the discussions and negotiations continue. We are, of course, studying other consolidation potential opportunities in Europe and elsewhere. That does continue. Nothing to announce today. What you have seen in the presentation that we've shown is that there are some unique opportunities for Air France-KLM to organically grow, which is not always the case with many of our other competitors. You can see on the long-haul, what we call the COI markets.
This is to the French and Dutch territories around the world, in the Caribbean and in the Indian Ocean. We have some very attractive growth opportunities. Now with Transavia France, we're able to re-enter many markets that we had vacated in the past due to profit issues. If you look at the opportunities for Transavia, first, obviously, our number one priority is to optimize our slot portfolio at Orly. Once that's done, we can look at other opportunities out of the main French domestic markets, which we've mentioned over the last year or two with you. From all the secondary cities, the Air France Group, the part of the Air France-KLM Group, we do not have any year-round European service out of these, you know, seven or eight secondary cities.
From a consolidation perspective, it's an organic opportunity for us if it's too difficult to find a target consolidation that we could integrate in a reasonable way. I think we're in a unique position when it comes to consolidation.
Thank you very much. We will take our next question from Sathish Sivakumar. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks again for taking my questions. I got 3 questions here. In terms of your capacity growth in the Q1, how much further you have like a room to grow to say Q2 and Q3 as the demand rebounds? Could you go back to 2019 levels without any constraints both on, say, labor as well as in terms of the fleet? The second one is around the FX, mainly on CapEx. How much of your fleet CapEx is actually hedged for USD exposure? Any color on that would be helpful. The third one is around the U.S. point of sales. Given that you're seeing a strong yield out of North America, any color how does bookings have changed versus 2019?
How much of your revenue is now actually originating out of U.S. versus 2019? Yeah. Thank you.
Okay, first of all, the connection is very poor, so it was difficult for us to understand clearly your question. I think the second and third questions came out relatively clear, so I'll have Steven answer those, and then, after, perhaps if you could repeat the first question, and we'll come back to that one.
Yeah. Let's first the dollar hedge. For Q4, we have hedged 61% of our operational expenses, and for 2023, we already hedged 54%. Even for 2024, we already have hedges in place, so that's 32%. On top, don't forget that we also have hedges in place for our investment. We continuously build up hedges so that at the moment that the aircraft needs to be delivered, we have these hedges in place. If I understood your first question is could we have been at 100% capacity if there were no restrictions? I think that would be a big step in terms of capacity on the ground.
Of course, we are already limited by the capacity of the airports, so it needs a big step from the summer period. There's always a very busy period, so I think we would not be able to have reached 100%, but 100% is very, very far, of course, for what we have delivered in the Q3. On North America, I heard what you're saying, but I didn't completely get your action because I gave a lot of coloring on it. I gave you already the higher yields, the higher capacity, and the higher load factor. Of course, we are far ahead of the revenues of 2019. I don't exactly understand your questions.
If you look at the total revenues compared to 2019, we are at 30%. Is that your question?
Yeah.
Perhaps if you could repeat your first question. Yeah, that's. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Sorry for the bad line, actually. Yes, Steven did answer my first question around the capacity headroom, or how much further you could actually ramp up into 2023 as you go into the summer.
We will take our next questions from Jarrod Castle. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Good morning, Ben and Steven. Just firstly, can you just clarify what's in that other operating income of EUR -335 versus, you know, about EUR 200 odd delta versus a year ago? 'Cause net income a bit light as we move down the P&L. Secondly, are you able to give any kind of color on the scale of the synergies that the CMA agreement will bring? It seems like things on track, but any color on that. I mean, where are you standing today, you know, looking towards your medium-term targets? Do you feel more or less confident when you look at the challenges ahead and where the great costs are coming out? Thanks.
Can you repeat the first question because it was not totally clear.
Just the other operating income which, you know, was a deficit of EUR 335 million in your P&L, you know, versus a negative EUR 114 million a year ago, what that is actually.
You mean below current operating income? No, it is related. The main impact is coming from the impact of the US dollar. We have to, let's say, revalue our balance sheet position, especially on the maintenance side, and that brought EUR 283 million negative impact on our results. Is that what you're referring to, the difference between operating margin and net income?
Yeah. That's right.
That, of course, is normally.
Yeah. No, thanks very much.
The big plus, of course, the interest cost. The other questions, let me start. I think on the CMA CGM, we are currently finalizing actually the contract. We don't give the exact numbers on the synergies, but you know that it will bring a lot to our belly, although we have an additional channel where we can sell. We are very hopeful that it, that we will get these results in the next year. It's good to see that we are having a good discussion. We completely understand each other's business model, and together, I think we are much stronger in this business, and especially because it will support our belly capacity, where we always have, let's say, capacity available to sell.
On the medium targets, I'm more confident because we are growing faster than expected, especially if you take into account the war, the fuel price, et cetera. We are growing faster than actually what we had in our trajectory, in our road up to the 7%-8% margins. On the costs and that you mentioned. Most other countries that we operate to, we have inflation to deal with. I think to date, it's the management team at our various business units have been doing a good job of balancing out in a equitable fashion. We still have work to do on the transformation side, both at KLM and at Air France.
The domestic market, as I mentioned, still has work to do, but we have already exited over 7,000 employees at Air France, 3,000 at KLM. There are some that are coming back as the business comes back, but not nearly at the numbers that exited. We are gonna have a structural reduction in the number of staff at the group. As you may know, we have reduced the highest unit cost money-losing operations at Air France, which was HOP! We've cut that capacity by 50%, so there are some transition costs going on there. The Orly operation is still not profitable.
As we ramp up Transavia, that is going to take a little bit longer. You will see the improvement coming on. I would say we're quite optimistic with the continued containment on costs. Of course, things do come up. We have challenges with our airports, in particular Schiphol Airport, absolutely not acceptable. Overall, we're quite pleased with the way our plans are moving along. They're on track.
Great. Thanks very much. Very clear.
We will take our next questions from Muneeba Kayani.
Good morning. Thanks for taking-
Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions. How are you thinking about industry supply next year? Do you think these challenges around ATC airports will continue and impact available capacity or do you expect to ramp up next year? On yields, I didn't catch kind of what you're seeing in terms of your current bookings in the fourth quarter and the first quarter. Is it that kind of over 20% that you've seen in the third quarter? Just following up on the previous question around cost. I know it's early days, but can you give an indication of how you're thinking about how your actual unit cost would be for next year?
On the industry supply, I think we still see that these problems will probably not be totally over in 2023. Let's say there's several things. We need all the things in place everywhere. We talk about airport capacity, ATC, you talked about, it's not the biggest constraint, by the way. They need to be planes. There are not a lot of planes ordered by our competition. We have our planes ready, but we know that the competition downscaled seriously their capacity. We see that there are not a lot of orders getting in during the crisis, and it takes some time to deliver these planes. For sure, on the supply side, it will be next year, still, let's say, limited compared to 2019.
The industry will not fully bounce back on the 2019 levels. I think we are ready to go back to closer to these levels. We always guided that it should be 2024 to be at the levels of 2019. On the forward bookings, I did a very extensive explanation, so I'm sorry that it didn't, it was not clear. Just to show one chart, if you look at the long haul, you see that in Q4 2024, we are at 87% of the capacity of 2019, and we already have filled the planes with 75%. That is how you should read this graph. That's all the coloring we can give.
On the unit cost, you know, we had a strong transformation in place. We are, let's say, currently, we are at a 3% up, but we have -11% in capacity. Part is very related how much capacity we'll get back. We are just working on our full budget session, so I can give a clearer answer, I think, with the full year results on the question.
I think I'll just add one other point for color, in France, at CDG, one of our main competitors across the Atlantic to some very key markets in the United States, Norwegian, no longer has airplanes here. So the eight or nine 787 that were flying some of our major markets are now out of the market.
Is it good?
It's not only the capacity, it's also the very low yields that we were competing against. That has helped us and we don't foresee them coming back in the near future. Obviously, once the airport is open, we could see a replacement. For the time being, we don't have that type of competitor in the market at CDG.
We will take our next question from James Hollins. Your line is open.
Oh, yeah.
Please go ahead.
Yeah, good. All right. Good morning. Hi, Steven, Ben. Apologies if I missed this, and do feel free just to tell me to go and read the transcript later. If you're talking about yields being healthy, I was just wondering if you could give a bit more color on what that means. Are we thinking up similar to Q3? I think some other airlines have flagged that. Or maybe you'd say up over 20% against Q4 2019. Just a bit more there, or tell me to go away. And then just for clarification, again, might be being stupid here, but are you talking about yields in the quarter up 24.4%? In slide 14, shows premium up 18%, economy up 22%. I'm not sure how that math works. Please just tell me where I'm being stupid.
Finally on corporate travel, volumes at 60% in Q3. Maybe just either of you just give me your expectations on that for Q4 as you might see it, and then even if it's just an opinion on how you'd see that for 2023. Thank you.
Let's first with the most easy question, which is the corporate traffic. You see, we are getting back, let's say we are not fully back where we were in 2019. We are now at, let's say, 76% in terms of revenues. What we see is that, let's say a lot of our business class capacity, because the load factor in the business class is doing better actually than in our economy, is picked up by leisure, but we see also a strong demand from the SME. We are now at 76%.
Of course, when we open the routes like China et cetera, the corporate traffic will also because there's more corporate traffic market than the other ones that will also help, let's say our corporate traffic revenues. We are now at 76%. We were steeply going up in Q1, Q2, and you see also in Q3. We are expecting a little bit to stay at these levels for the end of the year and then gradually when capacity comes back also to Asia et cetera, that we will increase that corporate revenue. Your question on the yields. Yeah. It is always a matter of load factor and yields.
We don't give an exact indication, but let's say it will be close with, let's say it this way. We don't go further into the details. Your very difficult math on question two. There is, I didn't fully get it, but Anne Rigail next to me said the difference is coming from the mix effect. If you want, we can take that also offline together this afternoon.
Okay. Yeah, no, fair enough. Thanks very much.
We will take our next question from Alexander Irving. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. 3 for me as well, please. My first on Amsterdam, but longer term. You expected the Dutch government's proposed permanent airport capacity reduction to take effect. If this does indeed happen, can KLM grow again? Second question, Portuguese government suggesting TAP may be for sale. How do you think about the attractiveness of this asset and use of cash versus, say, refloating or deleveraging? My third one, you had a slide early on about sustainable aviation fuel and some agreements in place for 2030. Can you give us a bit of insight into how the price is determined, please? Thank you much. Appreciate it. Thank you.
The line is extremely poor. I don't think we understood any of those questions. Perhaps if you could repeat them it would be helpful. Thank you.
Let me try this, if this is any better. My first question was on Amsterdam, but a bit longer term, around the Dutch government's proposed permanent airport capacity reduction. Do you expect this to take effect? And if it does, then can KLM grow again? My second is on TAP. For the Portuguese government suggesting that this may be for sale, how are you thinking about the attractions of this asset and the use of cash versus, say, refloating or deleveraging? Third, on sustainable aviation fuel. You mentioned some agreements you put in place. Can you give us any insight into how the price of the SAF will be determined, please? Either as a fixed price or the mechanism by which that would happen, cost plus or a margin or a premium of a jet fuel, for example. Thanks.
Okay. The line is better, not perfect, but I think we got most of what you were asking. I'll start on the KLM question, then Marjan can add some further comments. There was prior to this decision by the Dutch state to reduce activity from 500,000 to 440,000 movements at Schiphol. The airport was closed from a slot perspective, and all of those slots were in operation. There were no growth opportunities for KLM or any other airline at that point. Growth in terms of new destinations or new flights, new destinations are only possible by canceling other flights or canceling other destinations.
From a growth perspective, we were limited because of the slots. Now with a lower slot allocation, that just puts additional challenges. The ways for us to grow or maintain our capacity at Schiphol are, as you can imagine, increasing gauge. We can have, you know, similar flight, but instead of 100 seats, we could have 200, 300, 400. That is the sole tool we have today. Of course, we can alter the number of customers that we accept on a connection basis versus a local basis to ensure we have the proper exposure in different types of markets. Perhaps Marjan, you may wanna add one or two extra points.
Yeah. We still think smaller Schiphol harms enormously the international accessibility and employment in the Netherlands. We don't think the goal should be 440 flight movements, but the goal should be CO2 reduction and noise reduction. We think we have a better alternative with our investments in new fleet and using of SAF, so we will offer an alternative. The decision of the 440 is already postponed for a year because they should follow the balanced approach processes within the EU.
For the sustainable aviation fuel, it's been usually it's based on the feedstock prices. If you see the contract for 2023, we already fixed the price, and we will discuss that in 2023 for 2024. We take there a year-on-year approach, and we are trying to fix the prices as
Thanks. JP?
Regarding TAP, yes, the Portuguese government now has 100% ownership of TAP. It's our understanding that they are looking at different options. You know, at the appropriate time, we will definitely engage on a formal basis. The entire Iberian Peninsula we've been studying for many years. As you may know, we've had extensive involvement, both commercially and on the investment side with Air Europa. That we couldn't find a deal or a construct that was satisfactory to us. We're very familiar with the Iberian Peninsula. TAP, of course, could be another option for us to have a larger presence.
We are the number two operator right now on the transatlantic, on the southern part of the transatlantic. Of course, maintaining our position there is a key strategic importance for us.
All right. Thank you very much.
We will take our next questions from Sumit Mehrotra. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. My question would be, how do you see a competitive position with the Asian players, details for next year, given that the Russian airspace is closed? What is your strategy there once the markets open next year? Secondly, Steven Zaat, could you guide us a little bit about how you see the financial expenses developing into next year, keeping in mind the instruments that you are now resorting to? Also, I noticed your preference for, you mentioned a convertible hybrid bond, so why would you be motivated to look in that direction? Lastly, I will still try on the yield levels. I mean, James Hollins's question that there is a significant difference between economy and premium versus the 24% you report for the full year.
You mentioned something about the mix, a bit of an explanation there. Thank you.
Regarding the service to Asia, our presence in Asia was relatively small compared to our competitors flying to and from that region. As the Japanese market reopens, which is good news for us, we already have the Korean market that's open. You know, the market is absorbing the increased costs that we are incurring because of the inability to fly over Russia. We believe with such a lack of capacity that will continue. That's what we see going forward, and that's what we're planning for in terms of our schedule. If by chance the Chinese market does reopen, the number of aircraft we had allocated to China was not that large.
We do have alternatives for that capacity. As you saw this summer, we added capacity on the transatlantic over and above what we had in 2019, and that market still proves to be extremely strong. The diversity of our global network, both at KLM and Air France, we're quite confident that we've got abilities to reallocate our capacity in ways that are superior to the two main groups we compete with here in Europe and the United Kingdom. Specifically on Asia, I think we're ready to move quickly if markets do open up. We have a long history in Japan in particular on the Air France part of our business.
At KLM, we have a long history, particularly in Indonesia, which to date has also been strong. I don't foresee our performance being, you know, in the lower half compared to the others. I think we will actually perform in the top tier when it comes to the markets reopening versus our 2019 performance. It's not a concern for us that we will be disadvantaged in any way versus our competitors when certain markets open up.
Coming back, on, let's say, your question on the yield. On the premium, it's 18%, and the economy is 22%. Your question, I understand also the previous question is why is the total then 24%? That is the discussions we always have with our revenue management. That comes from the fact that we have now more premium in. If you have relatively more premium in, then of course your yield for the average are going up. That is the reason why it's not the average between 18% and 22%. If you have more premium, you will increase your yields. On the interest cost, let's say we will be for sure below this year.
That is what I can guide you for the moment. You can do your math yourself on the EUR 1 billion we will repay.
Thank you. If I can slip a follow-up. That was quite a big impact on the foreign exchange line because of your leased aircraft liabilities. How do we want to see this developing into next year?
Yeah, we have a very difficult accounting scheme. I can tell you because with the leased aircraft, we first of all, we depreciate them in euros. That has more an impact on the debt side. Of course, the debts will increase with this higher dollar, but we take that already into account now, because we are already currently at a very high dollar rate. That has already been taken into account. Then on the interest side, yeah, there is an impact of course, coming from it. I just guide you on the number that was including also the operating leases.
Yeah. Thank you.
We will take our last questions from Johannes Braun from Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I have two questions basically, and the first one is again on yields. You said that the yields in Q4 are trending on a similar level than in Q3 versus 2019. My question would be what yield level do you need to maintain profitability in 2023 versus 2022 based on the inflation and fuel and labor costs? The first question. The second question, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the competitive situation for Transavia as you further ramp up the business, so the competitive situation with other low-cost carriers especially easyJet, I guess. Thank you.
What kind of yield you need is especially of course related to the fuel price. You know that the forward curve for the fuel price for the moment is still going down. Actually, that should give us even a little bit more room to maneuver. You know that around 30% of our cost is fuel, so you can easily do the math. That is the biggest chunk in our, let's say, what we needed to recap this year in terms of yields. It's difficult to give that exact number because it all depends on the fuel, but still the expectations in the market is that the fuel price will go down this week. The current yields that should cover it, but again, it depends on the aircraft fuel.
I think I'll just add a little bit more color. While the phenomenon we saw this summer on the North Atlantic, where the market fully absorbed the increase in fuel and all the other inflationary items that went into our costs. You know, we fully expect when other markets such as Asia, and now that Japan is opening, that we should see a similar effect that the inflation impact and the rise in fuel impact. The market should be able to absorb that. Your question on Transavia. To date, all of our Transavia expansion has pretty much been at Orly Airport.
Orly Airport being closed, you know, to answer your question right now, the comparison for us is with our internal previous operator, which was HOP! and to some extent Air France. It's a totally different way of looking at this, at least for now. Once we've optimized Transavia, as I said, to answer one of the previous questions, then we will look at how we deploy this unit to compete in markets where we've exited because of profit issues. First step for Transavia is to optimize the group's portfolio and performance at Orly, which is still ongoing. That should be completed in the next 12-24 months.
Second step is to look at expansion opportunities for Transavia outside of Orly.
Thank you.
Okay. Operator, I think, we've reached our time limit.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.