Crisis-struck airline SAS Group expects its yield to fall further as the global downturn hits demand.

SAS Group's traffic dived 14 percent in June as the aviation company slashed seat capacity with 14 percent, the company said on Tuesday. The lower capacity is a move to adjust supply to demand that has been severely hit by the global economic crisis.

The company’s earnings continue to dive in a rapid speed. The yield for May - the most recent month for which data is available - was down by 5.3 percent. For June the change in yield is also expected to be negative. This will put pressure on revenues in the second quarter, the company said.

“The yield pressure clearly shows how extremely difficult the situation is for the aviation industry”, Mats Jansson, CEO at SAS Group, said. “The capacity reduction that we are carrying out is however starting to have the desired effect”.

To save up, the company is currently carrying out its approach Core SAS, which includes cost initiatives of approximately 4 billion kronor (€364 million, $500 million).

However, restructuring cost will increase compared with previous guidance due to earlier phase out of aircraft, higher early retirement ratio than expected and redelivery costs of leased aircraft. As a consequence, restructuring cost in Q2 is expected to reach approx 1 billion kronor, the company said in the report.

SAS Group carried 2.4 million passengers in June, down 12.9 percent compared to the same month last year. Total passenger load factor in June was unchanged at 76.7 percent.