Air France offers to freeze low-cost plan in bid to end strike
Air France offered on Monday to suspend the expansion of its low-cost operation Transavia in a bid to end the strike which has paralysed the flag carrier for more than a week.
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As the strike entered its second week on Monday, the management offered "to suspend the plan to create Transavia subsidiaries in Europe until the end of the year".
"This is to have a deeper dialogue with pilots", said Air France chief executive Alexandre de Juniac but he insisted the overall project could not be called into question.
However the unions rejected his offer on Monday afternoon, denouncing a "provocative action" by management.
"It's nothing but a smoke screen that offers no more guarantees than previous offers and does not solve any problems," the main pilots' union said in a statement.
For more than a week, more than 50 per cent of the airline flights have been cancelled and the company has estimated its losses at up to 20 million euros per day.
The government has called several time for an end of the strike and transport minister Alain Vidalies warned over the weekend that "the fate of the company could be at stake".
"The low cost operation is not a choice", said the minister, "it's an obligatory move, that's a reality. I think pilots are fully aware of this".
Unions believe the company wants to relocate jobs in the low-cost operation Transavia to countries with lower wages than the Air France pilots who can earn up to 250,000 euros per year.
Air France has made concessions before and offered to limit the Transavia fleet to 30 planes, but so far to no avail.
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