brunos

I agree with you regarding Seoul. I could understand why an airline ask for volunteers and pay extra for unsafe places, but why ICN. Sure the airport is far from the city and the city is less welcoming than some others, so what? we are talking work here, not leisure. I am not familiar with airline policies regarding staff assignments, but if staff needs to be paid extra to fly to some Aisan places (e.g. ICN) rather than their preferred places (e.g. BKK or HKG), then there is something wrong in the policy.

Regarding NRT, it would be a major political decision to discontinue service. NRT is still Tokyo major international airport. A lot of people connect there. It is also a convenient airport for a large Japanese population.

I believe that some Chinese airport are being considered too. I was told that some are really loss making and that the margin on big Chinese tourist groups are not high.

orbitmic

I suspect that is indeed correct, although I believe that some destinations have already been curtailed. China is probably a complex case - on the one hand, the market is here and expanding and with standards of living having grown quite fast for part of the population, you'd expect yield to go up quite a lot in the future and in that sense having the foot in the place is useful. On the other hand, they are probably a bit early: so far giant tour operators who negotiate very fiercely seem to be controlling much of the market (you'll know this better than me but my understanding is that for cultural, linguistic, and commercial reasons, individual tourism ex-China is still limited and much of its vast development has been in the form of organised group travel), so it is definitely not very lucrative as yet.

Plus the summer crisis must have worried AF and others a lot.

Plus Chinese airlines - even when they are partners - simply compete with far lower costs.

As both you and Goldorak say, it would be not only laughable but utter and shocking nonsense if anyone received a bonus to fly to ICN. Mind you, I can imagine some "funny" union leader claiming that proximity to the Koreas demarcation line represents a danger!

OT -- I saw a programme yesterday which was on French TV and where a famous French company owner and a Union leader were discussing the AF incident of the day before. The union leader was saying that France should impose "fair social conditions" to ME3 and other carriers in the name of free and fair competition and the company owner was asking how on earth he was planning to do that, and the union leader would continue saying "aren't you supposed to be in favour of free and fair competition, you are all about communication, do you think it is normal that stewardesses have to ask authorisation before getting married?" and they were going round in circle.

And then the company owner asked the union leader: "look, there is a basic problem here - imagine you are trying to fly between Paris and Miami and you have two options, comparable times, services, or maybe the other airline even offers better service. Would you really accept to pay twice more just to fly Air France??" and the Union leader answered "I am poor, but if I had the money, of course I would" -- and I thought that this summed up the idiocy of their position so perfectly.

Sometimes I wonder whether we are seeing a symbolic replay of the Solar Temple Sect's collective suicide. I'll admit that there are moments when I wonder if it wouldn't be better to let AF collapse and get bankrupt and some Easyjet of sorts create a new French airline with people who actually live on the same planet that the passengers that they transport.

brunos

You are quite right. AF has invested a lot in a strategic market, especially because Chinese airlines had poor quality and few routes. The question is whether that will ever payoff.
Chinese airlines are changing rapidly on their longhaul routes, at a pace that can only be encountered in China and a few other places. And I think that they have a view of alliances that is quite different from that of many posters here. While they enjoy the codeshares on local routes small Europe, or reciprocally huge China), they tend to compete fiercely with alliance partners on longhaul.

orbitmic

Totally ot -- I sometimes feel sorry for AF and any other people negotiating things in China. I think that people still think of it as a communist country and this entails certain visions of bureaucracy, but the truth is that when I had to do some business negotiation with Chinese counterparts, I encountered the most crudely capitalistic and aggressive business like style in my life (and that includes plenty of negotiations with Texas "cow boys", Russian millionaires, and the likes!). There basically was not even any pretence of social interaction during the negotiation (plenty of banquet food but the two were kept very clearly separate). My guess is that AF typical negotiators will find it extremely difficult to get any decent deal for their airline.

Mokshu

I'd put money on CPT and KUL.

brunos

Indeed, very rough capitalism.
But guanxi was and remain crucially important in China. This is a concept difficult to translate and even understand for foreigners, that has to do with network, relations, influence and debt, but is based on a long-term relationship rather than a personal short-term relation. The problem with AF (and many other companies) is that their local senior staff is rotated quite frequently. and it is not in a couple of years that one can build such network. Even the HQ top management team has changed a lot and they have many other priorities.

Zembla

Huh? What?!? I really like downtown Seoul! Great neighbourhoods to roam around, some are historical, some are bustling modern. In the center of Seoul you can hike in wonderful hilly forests which makes you forget that you're in one of the biggest cities of the world. Great restaurants and food, great opportunities to go out at night. Amazing palaces and temples. Great shopping. I'm completely puzzled here! I'd perfectly understand it if they have issues with for example LOS, but Seoul?

+1 ^
In fact, I love it!

Some foreigners live in such places...
Safety issues are not an issue if your employer takes care of them.

Goldorak

Hey Mokshu you cannot bet on KUL : they have already announced before the summer that they are axing it !

Mokshu

You got me !
Then let me replace KUL by HND

orbitmic

I would be extremely surprised if AF abandoned their foot into HND!

stimpy

Why? I don't know the current numbers but AF has said that bookings from Japan declined by a huge margin after Charlie Hebdo. If they have to keep NRT for logistic reasons, then maybe they get rid of HND. I'm sure that French business people would much prefer HND as would I. But before we had HND as an option we all flew into NRT and dealt with the train into the city. It's not that awful.

orbitmic

The HND flights I have been on have always been full, notably in J (the NRT ones have not) and AF recently increased frequencies which suggest that the route is doing well. And perhaps more importantly, HND has restrictions, and if you "leave" you will have to fight again to get landing rights whilst someone else might step in the place. This is not the case of almost any other airport in Asia so it makes discontinuing HND a bigger "risk" in the medium term than most other destinations (which discontinuation could more easily be reversed).

Ps: and precisely, the thing is you do have hnd as an option since it reopened to controlled long haul traffic! So if AF left, you'd still have a choice between nrt with AF or hnd with Jl, ba, and whoever else would fill the gap!

Goldorak

I agree with Orbitmic. AF will never leave HND unless all management has been affected by mad cow disease ! This would be the biggest mistake ever ! And AF has very good slots in HND.

brunos

Agreed.

Eddy421

HAN and ICN are among the 5 destinations to be squeezed....