AF Air FranceKLM

PARIS--Air France-KLM SA on Monday said the Paris terror attacks in November cost the airline €70 million ($76 million) in lost revenue.

The Franco-Dutch operator said the commercial impact of the atrocity, which left 130 people dead and hundreds injured in the French capital, eased in the second half of the month with bookings back on the rise last month.

"Booking trends in December were in line with a progressive recovery," the company said. All the group's airlines flew a total 6.72 million passengers in December, the same number as in December 2014.

A return to normality at the group—whose operating units include Air France, KLM and Transavia—follows a sharp decline in air travel and hotel bookings in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris which is one of the top five travel destinations in the world.

Expedia, the largest online travel booking company, reported high cancellation rates for the city, the rest of France and much of Europe.

With the strong dollar and stable economy, trans-Atlantic travel had been surging. Even after the Charlie Hebdo attack in January last year, Expedia saw the number of Paris bookings jump 30% to 35% in 2015. But bookings declined 40% to 45% after the November attacks.

Last month, Air France-KLM had estimated the cost of the consequences of the terror attacks at €50 million in November.

The attacks in Paris and the Oct. 31 downing in Egypt of a Russian jetliner, killing all 224 on board, have hit European airlines hard, amid a tightening of security measures across the continent.

On top of the fewer than expected bookings during the two last months of the year, Air France-KLM had to deal with several flight disruptions, among them a rise of hoax bomb threats against flights, including the finding of a fake bomb on board of a Boeing 777 flying from Mauritius to Paris. The hoax forced an emergency landing in the Kenyan city of Mombasa.

--Scott McCartney contributed to this article.

Write to Inti Landauro at inti.landauro@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 11, 2016 04:15 ET (09:15 GMT)

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