yyznomad

Me too! My memory is foggy though... I remember the hangar tour including the guts of several other airlines' planes when they were in that business... also remember the 333 sim... what else... that was my 2nd year as SE, IIRC...

YUL

I vaguely remember now, thanks for those 3 contributions!!

About those great ladies, i liked what you answered SL:

acysb87

I remember Punished Edmontonian (name has changed here recently) being at YUL and Ken Hamer,shore9 (help here with Greywolf??) IIRC.at YVR

skybluesea

CZAMFlyer

To be fair to Monsieur Smith, the starting gun hasn't even gone off yet. Most pointsguy articles are merely click-bait; no serious investors concern themselves with a 4% fluctuation based upon a mere announcement. Let's see if the "plummet" is sustained in the months after the new CEO takes the helm, or if the drop corrects itself within a trading day.

canadiancow

Listening to him speak French.

skybluesea

merci beaucoup et bonne nuit

FlyerTalker70

I highly doubt French fluency is a requirement to be CEO of the Delta-Air France-KLM group given the trilingual nature of the organization (i.e. English, Dutch and French). Remember, the CEO of Renault is Brazilian! From what I understand reading the popular media many credit Mr. Smith for spearheading the turnaround at AC in the mid 2000s and most recently how he handled the labour disputes at AC. I wish him the best luck at that group, that's a group that's on the way out given the labour strife at Air France. However, France is notorious for having an unnecessarily strong labour Union with its train service, SNCF only having 2 years in the last 57 strike free!

What's unclear to me is how AC will handle itself operationally given the major changes coming to the organization, namely the migration to Amadeus in the near term and the (re)introduction of Altitude in 2020 to say nothing of the programmes underway to improve the international O&D experience including the launch of the SSL at Toronto.

Safe Travels,

James

Stranger

a few inaccuracies here. First, this is AF-KLM, Delta not included. Delta and Air China are *shareholders.*

Second, no the Renault president is not Brazilian (although it is conceivable that it does carry a Brazilian passport among others). He is originally a Christian Lebanese, but French-educated and in many ways a part of the traditional French elite. So much so that in France, they most likely indulge in the wishful thinking whereby they see him as French. He did live in Brazil, yes, and he was well integrated there too. But that was merely one phase of his life.

skybluesea

@ j2simpso

with respect, do your homework - pretty easy these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn

Are you comparing someone fully schooled in Paris who worked half his career in France/Germany that will have caused a strong understanding of the EU business culture with Mr. Smith, who if the Globe & Mail report yesterday is accurate, has OK but much need to improve his French - is that what you are saying?

And when Mr. Smith attempts to engage unions with their highly skilled and media savvy political supporters who's target of action has little to do with AF, but gaining political power broadly, might be best to use his formidable talents to recruit the right people around him to do the work - that is true leadership, yet when a crisis hits, and airlines always face crises in time, the face of the CEO will be needed in the media, and if his French is insufficient this will create a major scandal at home that government allowed this...

Granted Mr. Smith is capable and will learn French as needed, and I wish him well, but the social / business structure in Europe is remarkably different than what AC faces in NA. And since only 10% of my professional work in the last 15 years has been in NA, have grown well accustom to NEVER making the fatal error to judge the business culture elsewhere - rather learn how each is different and find the right solutions accordingly, and this will be the key capability that the Board certainly was looking for.

AC cookie cutter is irrelevant and Mr. Smith certainly knows this...

ps...forgot to add how your NA bias is showing...on what basis can you possibly say notoriously and unnecessarily strong labour Union - what nonsense, the culture is the culture, as many in EU think NA business culture is barbarious with rampant job turnover

longtimeflyin

I'm wondering if anyone else feels that Air France's union complaining that Mr. Smith is not French enough smells like blatant nationalism, or language-ism. It certainly seems pompous and they appear to me to be full of it.

It's ridiculous to me. Judge someone by their performance and/or track record, but to complain because someone can't speak their mother tongue? That to me is -ism of some sort, and at the very least certainly is not demonstrative of professional-ism. Or - maybe they are scared of Mr. Smith's performance/track record so have now begun acting like children in a school field by resorting to bullying of sorts.

I guess I should hardly be surprised given how the Union has spoken with respect to other public comments.

RZR

4.5 mill euro

Stranger

It appear they supported the Antinori guy. Who is apparently not related to the Tuscan wine family but is French. Could be that this was simply the best argument they could find against Ben Smith.

Not that they would be beyond being totally focused upon the French belly button either.

tcook052

Let's please focus on the thread topic and not extraneous hypothetical possibilities.

tcook052
AC forum Mod.

skybluesea

@matthieugd

Op, might you consider changing thread title now that this is done deal.