(BFM Stock Exchange) – The bank lowered its advice to the Franco -Dutch Air Transport Group to “sell” this Thursday, March 27.

Between multiple threats of customs duties by Donald Trump, the persistence of geopolitical conflicts and the risks of recession, the air sector sees many winds.

This is in short, the message that Deutsche Bank sent to a note published this Thursday, March 27 and dedicated to the European transport sector (airports, airlines).

“We are faced with levels of uncertainty higher than usual on the markets, at the geopolitical and macroeconomic level, and we believe that this could remain the case in the foreseeable future,” warns Deutsche Bank.

“Although the signals remain mixed, we believe that the short-term risks for the GDP of the United States and Europe are downward oriented,” continues the bank. However, “the benefits of European transport companies are influenced by GDP and it is therefore not surprising that we had to revise the forecasts of a certain number of our companies,” she continues.

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The action that decreases

In this context, the German bank has made several changes of recommendations, notably on Air France-KLM.

The establishment thus went to “sell” against “to keep” previously while maintaining its price of courses at 8.5 euros. Or 12% less than the closing course displayed by the action of the company on Wednesday evening.

On the Paris Stock Exchange, Air France-KLM action abandons 4.6% around 4:10 p.m., weighed down by this change of advice. It even accuses one of the strongest drops of the SBF 120 index, the second excluding automotive.

Deutsche Bank recalls that the Franco-Dutch Air Transport group had surprised the market by publishing, at the beginning of the month, quarterly results superior to expectations but also by revealing much better perspectives than anticipated by analysts.

Air France-KLM had announced in particular to aim at least 300 million euros in improving its operating profit for 2025. This brought this indicator to at least 1.9 billion euros. According to Morgan Stanley, expectations were lodged at 1.69 billion euros for 2025. The action had earned 33%, the highest increase in a single session in its history.

“2025 was supposed to be a year of progress,” recalls Deutsche Bank. But the German bank fears that Air France-KLM is caught up in the degradation of the economic situation. Citing data from Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank notes that the probability of a recession in France has increased from 25% to 57.5%.

UBS also degrades

“If we consider alongside this that 63% of the capacities (to simplify the number of flights offered, editor’s note) of Air France-KLM in 2024 concerned France, that transatlantic demand may be lower on the American side given the recent slowdown of the domestic market, and taking into account the relatively high growth of the planned capacity of 3% to 4% between the United States and France/ Summer, we fear that economic pressures would slow down the progress of Air France-KLM, “develops the German establishment.

If macroeconomic risks will penalize all air groups, the sensitivity of Air France-KLM A at the economic situation is stronger than that of its competitors (Lufthansa, IAG) because its margins are lower and above all its debt is higher, explains Deutsche Bank.

“All things being also equal, a reduction of 3% of our income hypothesis per kilometer-free office offered for 2026 would result in a reduction of approximately 75% of profit per share (from Air France-KLM), against around 20% for Ryanair and IAG, and approximately 35-50% for other comparable companies”, illustrious Deutsche Bank.

Note that on Tuesday, UBS had lowered his advice to “neutral” against “buying” previously, judging that the title no longer had potential.