Air France-KLM sales fall harder in Q1: report

PARIS (Reuters) - Air France (AIRF.PA)-KLM's (AIRF.PA) first-quarter sales have fallen sharply, calling into question the airline's target for a 2009/10 operating loss of 129 million euros ($181.5 million), French newspaper La Tribune reported.

"The revenue loss will widen in the first quarter of the 2009/10 fiscal year," La Tribune quoted an Air France-KLM source as saying in an advanced copy of its Thursday edition.

Sales have fallen nearly 20 percent since April as the global financial hit business travel, La Tribune said.

Several sources cited an 18 percent drop in passenger traffic and a 35-38 percent fall in cargo activity in May, adding that June was also "bad" and the level of bookings until September "disappointing," La Tribune said.

"Air France-KLM's (quarterly) results will not be finalized before the end of the month so we do not make any comment," a spokeswoman said. Air France-KLM is due to report first-quarter results on July 30.

No one at Air France was immediately available to comment.

Sales at the Franco-Dutch airline fell 12.2 percent in the final quarter of the 2008/09 fiscal year ended March 31.

Citing an internal document, La Tribune said: "We (Air France-KLM) will need to wait until the 2011/12 fiscal year to find profitable growth again."

Faced with difficult economic conditions, the airline could cut as many as 4,480 jobs by 2011 instead of 2,467 initially expected -- a large part of which will be carried out through attrition.

(Reporting by Marie Maitre; Editing by Richard Chang)