Air France-KLM SA , Europe's largest airline by revenue, targets sales growth of at least 20 percent per year in China, a senior executive said on Wednesday.
"We aim for 20 percent minimum growth each year," Marnix H. Fruitema, senior vice-president for Asia-Pacific, told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference.
"In Asia-Pacific we are looking at five more destinations in the coming two years," Fruitema said, adding that one or two would be destinations in China.
Air France-KLM's biggest Asian market is currently Japan, but the carrier is looking to boost China sales by adding routes. More recently this year, the airline started flying to the southern city of Xiamen.
Air France-KLM flies to eight destinations in China.
Last month, the airline said a 4.9 percent rise in May passenger traffic fell short of a capacity increase of 5.9 percent, depressing its passenger load factor, the proportion of seats sold.
Political unrest in Africa and the Middle East and the consequences of Japan's earthquake continued to weigh on demand to and from those regions, Air France-KLM said.
An recovery in air travel and cost-cutting helped lift Air France-KLM back to a full-year operating profit for 2010/11, with its bottom line also boosted by a unit's share flotation.
