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One of Europe’s largest MRO providers has said that it is close to returning to pre-pandemic profit margins as demand for engine work continues to surge.
Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance reported an operating profit of €267 million ($314 million) for 2025, up from €170 million the year before, and with a 1.5 percentage point better margin of 4.8%, which compares with 5.6% before the pandemic.
Although third-party sales were almost flat in the fourth quarter, for the full year they climbed 10.6% to €2.31 billion, which group CFO Steven Zaat said was “fully driven” by engine maintenance services. “It is really, really, doing very strong,” he said on a Feb. 19 earnings call.
External sales growth was above 20% in 2023 and in 2024, albeit off a much lower base due to the impact of the pandemic in preceding years.
Revenue growth in 2025 was achieved, “despite changes in customer expectations and the heavy supply chain constraints,” the company said.
Zaat sees further room for improvement in AFI KLM E&M’s components activity, which he expects to become more profitable in the coming years, after suffering from supply chain problems in the post-pandemic period.
“These disruptions impacted all businesses through higher component costs, expanded inventory and technical requirements,” Air France-KLM said.
During the final quarter, Air France-KLM signed 10 new long-term MRO contracts with external customers for engine, component and APU services.
These took its maintenance order book to $10.7 billion by Dec. 31, 2025, versus $8.7 billion at the end of December 2024.
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