During 2001, Air France posted the highest growth rates in both capacity and traffic, propelling it from third to second place in the AEA rankings.

** Passenger Operations:  January figures confirm the steady upturn in traffic that has been observed since last November. For the first time since 11 September, activity is back at last year`s levels.
Overall, January activity comes out as follows:

* Capacity: -0.1% by ASK (available seat-km)
* Traffic: +0.4% by RPK (revenue passenger-km)
* Load factor: 73.7 (+0.4 points)
Yield per revenue passenger-km came in at the same level as last year.
** Long-haul network: During January, traffic continued to recover on the long-haul network, rising 1.8% on a 0.9% capacity increase. The seat load factor improved by 0.7 points to 78.3%.
* Over the North Atlantic, capacity was cut by 18% while traffic dropped by 10.6% drop in traffic, leading to a 6.2 point improvement in the load factor, to 75.4%.
* On routes to and from Latin America, traffic rose 12.7% on a 14.8% increase in capacity. The seat load factor was down slightly, by 1.4 points, but remained at a high 76.9%.
* On the Asia network, traffic has surged by 5.4% on stable capacity. The load factor rose 4.2 points to 81.9%.
* On the Africa/Middle East network, traffic rose by 30.6% on a 38.3% capacity increase. The load factor shed 4.4 points to 75.1%.
* On the Caribbean/Indian Ocean network, traffic dipped by 3.7%, despite a 3.7% increase in capacity. The load factor remains at a high 80.1% (down 6.2 points).

** International Medium-Haul Network: Traffic on the European network also fared better than in the previous months. Capacity remained stable (+0.2%) and traffic fell 1.1%. The load factor came in slightly below the January 2001 figure at 58.7% ( down 0.8 points).
Domestic Medium-Haul Network: On the domestic network, capacity and traffic both declined, by 6.8% and 8.7% respectively, thus limiting the drop in the seat load factor to 1.3 points (61.7%).
Cargo Operations:  January`s results are poor, especially in the early part of the month, with traffic dropping 2.1% on a capacity increase of 3.7%. The load factor shed 3.5 points to come out at 59.8%

Outlook: Advanced bookings are looking good for the months ahead and confirm the rebound of traffic to last year`s level.

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