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Pilots end turbulent Air France strike, talks continue

Air France’s main pilots’ union ended its marathon two-week strike on Sunday, allowing a bitter feud over its low-cost subsidiary to continue in a calmer climate.

A passenger in the Marseille airport on 24 September 2014.
A passenger in the Marseille airport on 24 September 2014. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier
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The SNPL's spokesman Guillaume Schmid told AFP the pilots were ending the protest, which has cost the airline over 200 million euros and sent its shares down by 15 per cent.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls immediately responded to the news saying that he hoped all sides could "regain the confidence of everyone and resume the development of Air France and its subsidiary Transavia, which is an asset."

The French government, which has a 16 percent shareholder in the group and sits on the board, had called several times for the strike to end, saying it hurt the image of France as it was unbearable for travellers.

Valls said on Sunday that the 14-day strike was "misunderstood and penalised passengers, the company and the country's economy".

The strike was initiated in response to the airline’s recent announcement of a major plan to expand its budget subsidiary Transavia via regional hubs around Europe to rival budget carriers like Ryan Air.

The billion dollar plan sparked the ire of Air France crew because Transavia pilots work on a different and less lucrative employment contract.

The pilots wanted a single contract across Air France-KLM and its subsidiaries to avoid cutting salary and work benefits if they flew with Transavia.

They also fear the airline would increasingly seek to replace the expensive Air France pilots, who can earn up to 250,000 euros a year, with less costy Transavia pilots.

As a concession to the pilots, the company scaled back its plans insofar as keeping Transavia operations within France.

However, it has maintained that it has the right to have varying employment contracts for those working at its budget subsidiary.

Despite lifting the strike, Schmid said talks over the issue had reached an impasse early Sunday, with the latest round still not meeting the pilot’s demands.

Air France flight schedules are expected to return to normal starting Tuesday.

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