By Alberto Delclaux

Air France-KLM (AIR.FR) said Friday that it swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, dragged by a pension-related non-current expense of 1.43 billion euros ($1.75 billion).

The Franco-Dutch carrier posted a net loss of EUR977 million for the period, compared with a net profit of EUR362 million a year earlier. Sales rose 2.4% to EUR6.23 billion, supported by higher passenger traffic and unit revenue, while income from current operations was up 20% at EUR113 million.

The non-current expense resulted from the de-risking of the KLM pilot and cabin pension plans, the company said.

Air France-KLM said it is targeting unit-cost reduction of between 1% and 1.5% for 2018--at constant currency, fuel price and pension charges--and expects its fuel bill to increase by 150 million on year to EUR4.7 billion.

In 2018, it plans to increase capacity in available seat kilometers by between 3% and 4% for its passenger network, and by between 6% and 7% for budget airline Transavia.

For the first quarter, the carrier expects positive unit revenue growth on a constant-currency basis.

Write to Alberto Delclaux at alberto.delclaux@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 16, 2018 01:29 ET (06:29 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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