A 0.8% cost decrease excluding fuel is quite significant I think!
Does anybody know the trend for yield per revenue km in previous years, or a comparison with other airlines? I would be willing to bet that a big chunk of this yield reduction is due to external factors (i.e. competition to ME & Asia) and is impacting other airlines as well.
From a business point of view, the target of lowering costs and increasing customer satisfaction (i.e. become a 5 Star airline) is of course the holy grail....