The head of Air France-KLM said last week that Europe’s biggest airline is considering part-time jobs or temporary layoffs to combat the “brutal” situation in cargo and passenger demand. “Air France-KLM must remain competitive. I haven’t excluded temporary lay-offs. We will watch very closely. These measures should allow us to avoid affecting employment,” he said. “We don’t see the slightest bright spot. The reduction in demand in cargo is brutal,” Air France-KLM’s director general Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told the Figaro newspaper adding that the drop is also very high for premium passengers. But the carrier did note that its freight traffic stabilised in June for the second month running – with traffic down just 0.4 per cent from a year ago – after falling sharply since the final quarter of 2008. But after stripping out the contribution of its fully-owned subsidiary Martinair, Air France-KLM’s cargo volume fell 17.2 per cent in June. Air France-KLM’s cargo unit lost swung to a US$284 million loss in fiscal 2008-2009 from a year-earlier profit of $53.4 million. It is expected to post a loss for the three months to the end of June. In May Air France-KLM said it planned to cut 3,000 jobs in the fiscal year to end-March through attrition.