Airline Air France-KLM booked a bigger than expected loss of €1.5bn in the first three months of this year, with passenger numbers down 75% on the same period in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The flag carriers transported just 4.8 million passengers in the first quarter, as travel restrictions continued. In the same period last year, 18 million people used the airline.

Air France was given a new €4bn support package by the French state in early April, partly in the form of new shares, but nothing has yet been agreed about KLM.

Those talks have been complicated by the European Commission demand that KLM hand back take off and landing rights at Schiphol in return for any future bail-out. Air France had to return 18 slots at Paris Orly.

Last year, the Netherlands and France provided €10.4bn in loans and guarantees to the airline and KLM is the biggest beneficiary from the NOW wage support scheme in the Netherlands.