(Boursier.com) — Air France-KLM continues its bullish sequence with a further increase of 2.3% to 1.72 euro this Friday on the Paris stock exchange, which brings the advance of the value to 15% over the week. The buying flow has been fueled by several brokers’ ratings in recent hours, starting with that of Redburn which raised its recommendation from ‘sell’ to ‘neutral’, while Davy raised its recommendation on the airline to ‘outperform’ targeting a price of 2.3 euros, against 1.3 euros previously. Previously, Morgan Stanley had already upgraded the file from 2 to 2.15 euros, while remaining at ‘line weighting’.
Analysts have again become clearly positive on the carrier since, according to the ‘Bloomberg’ consensus, 11 are ‘buy’, 7 are ‘hold’ and only 3 are ‘sell’. The average 12-month target is set at 2.06 euros.
Without impact?
According to the latest comments from management, Air France KLM said it was not feeling the impact of the rising cost of living, citing more than 1.5 billion euros in ticket sales in the first quarter and a solid demand across its entire network… It should also be noted that AF generated Ebitda of 214 ME over the past quarter, against 70 ME for KLM. The French airline, on the other hand, suffered an operating deficit of 181 ME, i.e. a margin of -4.6%, against a deficit of 128 ME and a margin of -5.1% for the Dutch carrier.
The group anticipates a stable unit cost for the whole of 2023 at constant fuel prices and exchange rates and excluding employment support measures compared to 2022. Its net investments for the full year 2023 are estimated at 3 MdsE.
Towards a beautiful summer…
Citi (‘buy’) estimates that the group’s results were mainly driven by higher prices, with passenger network unit pricing in the 1st quarter up around 21% compared to 2019 levels, a consensus of + 19%. Overall, the group did better than expected on prices and less well on costs, the bank said.
For Bernstein, Air France KLM is preparing for a “strong” summer and wants to be, like many airlines, optimistic for the peak travel period this year. The broker also underlines the slight reduction in capacity prospects, with a target of 95% of 2019 levels in 2023 against 95% to 100% previously forecast…
Air France-KLM shareholders are now invited to attend the Combined General Meeting to be held on Wednesday June 7 at 2:30 p.m. at the Hilton Paris Charles de Gaulle Hotel in Tremblay-en-France. The AGM will be broadcast live on the company’s website.