Analysis: it's all about costs at AF-KLM, but angry unions may blunt its cutting edge

© Mario Beauregard

Air France-KLM is still operating under great financial pressure, in spite of a decent trading update this week, particularly if oil prices keep rising and costs are not carefully managed over the next couple of years.

Its shares plunged more than 4% on Wednesday, in the wake of a quarterly release that turned out to be worse than it looked at first sight, and its valuation was still under pressure yesterday, underperforming a flat stock market by two percentage points.

Share price movements say it ...