Striking Air France pilots reject airline’s offer to halt low-cost carrier launch

Air France pilots on Monday rejected a last-ditch management offer to end the longest strike at the airline since 1998, which is costing up to US$26 million daily. The main pilots’ union dismissed as a “smoke screen” the chief executive’s offer to freeze the development of a subsidiary budget airline that management sees as vital to compete in the cut-throat aviation sector. The management proposal “is nothing but a smoke screen that offers no more guarantees than previous offers and does not solve any problem,” the SNPL union said in a statement. Alexandre de Juniac, chief executive of Air France-KLM—Europe’s second-largest airline after Lufthansa—said earlier Monday that this was the “last offer” to break the deadlock that has grounded on average 60 per cent of the fleet.

I think no one can now understand the reasons for the strike … [the company has made a] balanced and positive offer.

Alexandre de Juniac, chief executive, Air France-KLM

Pilots are on strike in protest of the airline’s plans to develop Transavia France, which serves holiday destinations, primarily in the Mediterranean. They fear the airline will seek to replace expensive Air France pilots, who can earn up to US$321,000 a year, with Transavia pilots, who are paid considerably less. De Juniac offered “to suspend the plan to create Transavia subsidiaries in Europe until the end of the year” in order to have “a deeper dialogue” with pilots, but insisted the overall project would go ahead. Air France, which is nearly 16 per cent state-owned, said the strike was costing “up to 20 million euros per day” and that it would update its profit forecasts when it was over.

The pilots’ strike has had disastrous consequences for customers, employees and the company’s finances.

Air France statement

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