PARIS (Bloomberg) - Air France-KLM Group and British Airways plc. were among 11 carriers fined a total of 799.4 million euros ($1.1 billion) by European Union (EU) regulators for co-ordinating air-cargo fuel and security surcharges.

Air France and its units got the biggest penalty of 339.6 million euros and British Airways was fined 104 million euros, the European Commission said on Tuesday. Air France-KLM, Europe's largest airline, and British Airways are recovering from record losses in 2009 when the financial crisis ravaged sales.

Airlines "are much more financially sound now than they were a year and a half ago", said Jacob Pedersen, an analyst with Sydbank A/S in Aabenraa, Denmark. "They must be satisfied this happened now and not back then because that would have been far worse."

The EU fines come three years after regulators sent complaints to 26 airlines, following co-ordinated antitrust raids worldwide that led to jail terms for some executives, fines and settlements. US authorities have fined 18 airlines at least $1.6 billion and filed criminal charges against 14 executives for price-fixing.

"It is deplorable that so many major airlines coordinated their pricing," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said. Extra security costs in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, also were not "an acceptable reason to stop competing", Mr. Almunia told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday.

SAS Group AB got a 70.2 million-euro penalty and Cargolux Airlines International SA, Europe's third-biggest air-freight carrier, was fined 79.9 million euros, the commission said.

The global airline industry has lost money in seven of the past nine years, racking up losses of more than $50 billion, according to the International Air Transport Association.

The EU cannot fine companies more than 10 percent of the previous year's sales. That rule forced it to reduce fines for two of the carriers. It did not identify those airlines.

Air France-KLM Group said it would appeal a combined fine that puts its total payout over the provision it set aside to cover the cartel probes.

From 530 million euros set aside as a provision in 2008, Air France-KLM had already paid out almost 330 million euros in fines and class-action awards in the US, Canada and Australia, spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand said in a telephone interview.

British Airways said in an e-mailed statement its fine was "within the provision made by the company in its 2006/7 report and accounts".

The British Airways penalty is "manageable" and will have a "modest" impact on the company's cash balance, which was 1.857 billion pounds on October 29, said Douglas McNeill, an analyst at Charles Stanley Group in London.

SAS, owner of Scandinavia's biggest airline, said it will appeal its fine.

"SAS believes that it has not been involved in a global cartel and that therefore, the fines are disproportionate," it said in a statement to the Stockholm stock exchange on Tuesday.

The company posted its fourth consecutive quarterly loss today after recording the fine. It had a 1.05 billion kronor ($156 billion) loss in the third quarter.