Air France-KLM is on a careful road to recovery with 3Q2012 net and operating profit

Air France-KLM chairman and CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta was unassuming in his comments regarding the company's 3Q2012 results when describing the performance of the group as "satisfactory" across all its businesses with the exception of cargo. Behind closed doors, management of the embattled group was probably more cheery - for the first time in the past two years Air France-KLM could shelve bad news and instead announce a clear improvement of its financial results with net income for the three months ending 30-Sep-2012 jumping to EUR306 million and operating profit up 28% to EUR506 million.

Net earnings rose to EUR306 million from EUR14 million in the year-ago-period and was above the average consensus by analysts of EUR267 million. Also Air France-KLM's income from operations was above the average forecast of EUR427 million, giving the company's share price a welcome upward tick of 8.4% on 31-Oct-2012, the day its 3Q2012 results were published, to close at EUR6.44.