Air France continued to post a strong commercial performance for July:

** Passenger Operations
* Capacity increased by 7.7% in ASK (available seat-km)
* Traffic rose 6.6% in RPK (revenue passenger-km)
* Load factor remained high at 82.1% (down 0.9 points). This slight dip was due to a sharp increase in load factor in July 2000 climbing from 78.4 to 82.9%. Air France indicated at that time that it wished to ease the load factor by optimizing yield management.

[Unit revenue in July should increase both in terms of revenue per available seat-km (RASK) and yield per revenue passenger-km (RRPK)].
** Long-haul flights

Long-haul traffic grew 7.6% for an 8.9% increase in capacity. The load factor reached 85% (down 1 point).

* Capacity on North American routes increased by 9.3% and traffic rose by 5.2%. Load factor remained at a very high level of 85.3% (down 3.3 points).
* In the Latin American sector, traffic grew by 12.8% for a 20% rise in capacity. The load factor stood at 79.6% (down 5.1 points).
* On Asian routes the load factor reached a remarkably high level of 87.5%, up 1.3 points. Capacity rose 5.6% and traffic 7.2%.
* Capacity and traffic on Africa/Middle East routes grew by 10.3% and by 11.1% respectively. The load factor gained 0.6 points to 81.9%.
* Traffic on Caribbean/Indian Ocean routes grew 8.6% for a 6.4% increase in capacity. The load factor gained 1.7 points reaching 85.9%.

** International medium-haul flights

Traffic grew 3% for a 3.2% increase in capacity. The load factor remained almost stable at 73.9% (down 0.2 points).

** Domestic medium-haul flights

Traffic on domestic routes increased by 3.2% for a 5.7% increase in capacity. The load factor dropped 1.8 points to 73%.

** Cargo operations

In July cargo traffic dropped 6.7% for a 2.2% decrease in capacity. The load factor stood at 61.9% (down 2.9 points). Despite yield per revenue tonne-km (RTK) remaining buoyant, operations are feeling the effect of the economic downturn on the American and Asian markets.

** Development
Within the framework of the Global One-Equant merger operation, the Fondation SITA, which groups airline operators including Air France, sold its 33% stake in Equant to France Télécom on 29 June 2001, on the basis of 2.2 Equant shares for one France Télécom share. On 6 July 2001, on behalf of Air France, the Fondation SITA sold all of the 1,012,860 France Télécom shares held by Air France for a total 57.2 million EUR. The sale of these shares generated an extraordinary income amounting to 23 million Euros in the second quarter of fiscal 2001-02.

——-