06 April 2021 - 17:00An Air France Airbus A350 prepares to take off in Colomiers near Toulouse, France. Picture: REUTERS/REGIS DUVIGNAU
With talks still ongoing for possible additional financial aid from the Dutch state as well as as-yet-unspecified measures for the whole group in the coming year, “this is not the end of actions to strengthen the balance sheet”, Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska said in a note. France will convert its €3bn direct loan into hybrid instruments. The airline will also proceed with a capital increase of up to €1bn. The operation will bring in cash and lead to a re-jigging of the airline’s shareholding.
“The acute need at KLM is less urgent,” Dutch finance minister Wopke Hoekstra wrote on Twitter, telling parliament in a letter than the Netherlands’s holding could fall to about 9.3% after the capital increase.France and the Netherlands have often been at odds since the 2004 merger of Air France and KLM, with the Dutch arm long resenting French control, Air France’s weaker profitability and history of labor conflict.
DPE_ZA this is what a government with morals and ethics does to keep the airline industry alive in a proper country not the shit show that you’ve run by your useless I’m competence at SA Express and SAA causing unemployment and trauma amongst workers whilst you get paid MYANC