PARIS- Air France KLM reported higher passenger traffic figures for October, as its new Chief Executive Ben Smith embarks on plans to improve performance after costly strikes earlier this year.
Air France KLM said it carried about 9.2 million passengers in October, up 3.3 percent from last year.
The group's load factor - a measure of how packed an airline's planes are - increased by 0.5 percentage points to 87.5 percent from last year, the company said.
Smith joined Air France KLM in September from Air Canada, and within weeks struck a pay deal with staff unions to end a dispute that had led to protracted and costly strikes which grounded hundreds of flights earlier this year.
The French state has a 14 percent stake in Air France KLM, while Delta Airlines DAL.N and China Eastern Airlines 600115.SS each hold an 8.8 percent stake in the group.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips) ((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com; +33 1 49 49 53 84;))
