orbitmic

But the airline would most certainly use the 10, 10.15, and 10.30 slots to fly to different destinations. AF does have flights 30 minutes apart as part of La Navette but those have a very healthy load overall so are not likely to be considered "artificially" kept.

NickB

Actually, it has been known to happen at LHR and attracted vivid criticism from the press for flying "empty planes". . This could clearly be regarded as an abuse by a schedule coordinator, though.

A slot series is a time-and-day-of-the-week series (thus Mondays 10am is not in the same slot series as Tuesdays 10am). If my calculations are right, and assuming that we have a slot series over the whole summer season period (you can also have shorter slot series down to a minimum of 5 weeks), you would need to cancel in over 5 weeks to reach the 20% threshold. I guess that you would probably play around with your slot portfolio and choice of which flights to cancel if there was a risk of reaching the threshold.

Moreover, there are exceptions to the 80% use-it-or-lose-it rule for a number of events outside the carrier's control, including "interruption of air services due to action intended to affect these services which makes it practically and/or technically impossible for the air carrier to carry out operations as planned" (Article 10(4)(b) of the Reg). This could be read to cover internal strikes and I believe that this is how schedule coordinators normally read this but I am not aware of judicial interpretations of it.

NickB

I could not disagree more. The idea of taking away from national political institutions the power to interfere with the market and allocate favours and privileges to undertakings on the basis of political considerations is the very cornerstone of the European single market.
IMO, it is a very good thing that governments are not at liberty to allocate slots at congested airports to whoever they want and have, instead, to designate independent bodies and require them to follow established, objective rules.

JOUY31

Arggh.

But I still enjoy couscous

johan rebel

Green Anger at 'Ghost Flights'

Johan

orbitmic

Thanks (to you and NickB) for pointing this out - I had completely missed it!

JOUY31

SNPL failed on at least one issue: their call for an external mediator, which was denied by the French government, could have led, if it had been successful, to the ouster of the airline group's CEO.

jsfr

Indeed it seems that after the couac last week of the announcement concerning Transavia Europe that the government has been a firm supporter of the AF management and shown positive signs of supporting business instead of Unions.

brunos

I have never heard of a mediator making the recommendation of the ouster of a CEO or of a union leader. But anything can probably happen in France.

bodory

Europe 1 reported this morning that unions now want the pilots to be paid for their strike :
http://www.europe1.fr/economie/air-f...-payes-2245807

Good news is : they are talking only about the base pay, not the bonuses they usually get for flying

Of course AF management refuses.

orbitmic

What a joke

LETTERBOY

Good for them!

bodory

More details here (French only) : http://www.lefigaro.fr/societes/2014...s-de-greve.php

Practically, here is how it works :
- pilot is due to fly CDG-JFK on Monday and fly back on Tuesday (landing Wednesday morning)
- pilot says to AF with a 48h notice : I will be on strike on Monday (only)
- de facto pilot cannot work on Tuesday because AF is not sending him to JFK because another pilot is on strike that day
- pilot claims his base pay for the Tuesday and Wednesday

Yahillwe

Does that mean they'll go back on strike? And would the feeble AF mgmt cave in?

brunos

Let's continue the example.
Then the pilot has three normal days of rest in Paris on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, he will get paid anyway for those. As AF pilot fly some than 600 hours per year (50 per month or 25 per two-weeks). That means that on CDG-HKG, a pilot will typically do one rotation per two-week (duration of the strike) and rest two days in HK. That might be an extreme example, but if they can only claim as striking day the day of the initial CDG-HKG, they will be paid for 13 days over the strike period. Even if they lose their pay for the return HKG-CDG, they will still get paid for a mjor part of the 14-day strike. I understand that it only applies to the fixed part of the salary.