Air France : les pilotes se prononcent en faveur de la création d’une filiale “low cost”, contre l’avis des syndicats. Against trade union advice.
La compagnie souhaite créer une nouvelle structure pour exploiter certaines lignes sur long et moyen-courrier, en payant les personnels navigants 40% moins cher.
Air France wishes to create a new section to develop certain long and short haul routes, and pay staff 40% less.
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La consultation des pilotes a été fortement suivie, avec 73,8% de participation. “Cela ne fait pas peur aux pilotes de créer un nouvelle filiale”, a constaté sur franceinfo Philippe Evain, le président du SNPL, qui a dit “prendre acte” de leur décision et promis de “tenir compte de leur avis”. Le SNPL s’opposait au principe de créer une filiale distincte plutôt qu’une simple nouvelle marque.
The consultation participation by pilots was strong at 73.8%. “Pilots are not afraid of a new partner” Philippe Evain, president of the union told FranceInfo, and “stood over” their decision and promised to “take account of their advice”. The SNPL union is opposed in principle of the new AF watered down service.
Des destinations actuellement non rentables. On current non-profitable routes.
Mais l’accord ne pourra pas être mis en œuvre par Air France sans l’aval de ce syndicat, qui représente 65% des pilotes. Le SNPL a prévenu que ce vote n’était pas “un blanc-seing” sur l’ensemble de l’accord soumis par la direction aux syndicats début février, et dont ce projet de filiale n’est qu’une des composantes.
But the new agreement can not be acted on by AF without the endorsement of the union, which represents 65% of pilots. The union stressed this vote is not a “go ahead” on the submission of decision made by the unions at the beginning on February, and the project is not definite.
Le projet d’accord présenté par la direction prévoit notamment que la nouvelle filiale, baptisée Boost, ne dépasse pas 18 avions moyen-courriers et 10 long-courriers, et que les personnels navigants soient rémunérés aux “coûts du marché”. Cette filiale a pour vocation d’exploiter des lignes moyen et long-courriers qui ne sont pas rentables actuellement.
The agreement proposed for the new Low cost was branded Boost, and it will not include more than 28 aircraft , 18 short-haul and 10 long haul, and that the flying personnel will be payed the “market rate”. It will also on develop routes that are currently non-profitable.
Opinion: AF has used partner airlines to supply the CDG and Orly hubs. These partner airlines: Britair, Regional, Airliner (All French) and Cityjet (Irish) were limited to aircraft capacity of 100 seats or less. This was a restriction placed by AF pilots unions. Cityjet was sold by AF in 2013 and now operates independently but code-shares with AF, still supplying passengers to CDG. The other three partners, in particular Regional have developed a model branded as HOP. Not quite low cost but designed to be more flexible. The shift away from the full service airline came with Transavia, who developed within KLM as a low cost carrier and even offered AF flight crew the option of transferring, within the AF-KLM group from AF to Transavia. Of the four partners mentioned above, Cityjet was the best performer on flexibility and profit for AF. This was due mainly to the Irish company adopting EU labour law (post Nice) vis-a vís the free movement of goods and services. This allowed flexibility on staff allocation based on the registration (tail number) of the aircraft. As all Cityjet aircraft were registered in Ireland, Irish/EU laws prevailed. However the French labour laws are enshrined in the ‘Code Civile’ and are vigorously enforced by labour inspectors and the Gendarmes. President Sarkozy, in order to curry favour with the unions issued a decret making EU labour law non-compliant in France. This put both Cityjet and AF in an awkward position and very restrictive rules were put in place on staff movement, making it virtually impossible to operate profitably. Cityjet senior management ignored the new rules for several years and eventually were replaced by a new mainly French senior management team. There was great disappointment among all the European route destinations Station Managers that Cityjet would be forced to cut their services as they were greatly appreciated for their flexibility, compared to other AF partners. It was widely known, and stated by Out-Station Managers that the new parachuted French management team were ‘AF mainline management rejects’ and AF was ‘delighted’ to dispatch them to Dublin. They all left once the Cityjet was sold.
