San Gottardo

A rebuttal is a fact- and data-loaded, lengthy and often tedious to follow line of argument. It obviously has the advantage of being relatively objective (if properly done), very substantiated and emotion-free (if properly done), and it's actually a dialogue and exchange of arguments. But in an environment such as "social unhappiness" in France something like this is difficult to position, because there hardly is any exchange of arguments, more "propagandistic" shouting at "adversaries" (note: not partners with a different point of view) with slogans rather than fact-based arguments, suffering from a lack of self-reflection, with many half truths and incoherent arguments, analyses reduced to headlines and thus becoming fallacies, etc.

The one that I currently find the most amusing is the fundraising that "intellectuals" (no word for that in another language, France is the only country where being intellectual is considered a full time job) do for the striking rail workers. I've heard some interviews with them and their line of argument is "These people do more than drive trains. They transport dreams!". What that has to do with managing the debt of SNCF or with the age of retirement of people selling train tickets. This is the non-quantitative variant of non-sensical blubber, in the same category as the pilots' maths of "we need higher salaries because employer charges are too high". Reminds me of my 5 year old boy who argued that he needed another Carambar because Christmas was still 5 weeks away.

HalconBCN

If AF were to disappear (=unlikely), in all likelihood it would be replaced by something worse - Joon.
Aside from strikes and terror related events, AF is a profitable airline with a strong premium brand.
What is needed now is the right leadership to turn the ship in the right direction.

ticino

Is that what they are saying?

Aren't the pilots saying ("Le mécanisme qui consiste pour le groupe AF/KLM ŕ dévier une partie du flux de ses clients vers la base d’AMS pour éviter les taxes françaises, est la principale cause des moindres résultats d’Air France.") that some passengers are being "encouraged" to book through AMS because of lower Dutch taxes?

Don't they mean corporate tax? Otherwise why would they say "...choix stratégique de la holding AF/KLM qui consiste ŕ ne pas s’opposer aux taxes mais ŕ plutôt utiliser la filiale hollandaise pour les contourner." The Netherlands is widely considered a corporate tax haven, so the pilots could have a valid point.

Not sure how we are being "deviated" but I have certainly noticed that wherever and whenever I want to travel, KLM is almost always cheaper than AF, but sometimes by only a few crowns (2!) so that KLM is almost invariably highlighted as cheapest option.

brunos

I am sorry to disagree. And I really mean it: I feel very sorry about it.
But AIr France has not been a profitable airline. There are ups and downs depending on cyclical external events like world growth/recession and oil price. But if you look at AFKL balance sheets, retained earnings (accumulated profits) are a negative 2 billion.
And that is for AFKL, if you took AF alone, the negative accumulated loss would be much larger.

Whether Air France is a strong premium brand is somewhat suggestive and debatable. There have been some studies, some confidential, but I do not currently have those. There is little doubt that French tend to consider Air France as an excellent brand. But I have never got that impression abroad. I remember the time when Americans called it "Air Chance".

San Gottardo

In a way, yes. Of course with smoke and mirrors. They say that their battle for higher wages puts pressure on the government to lower taxes/charges (NB: on page 1 they mention "charges externes" - which I presume includes both, but would need to check the annual report whether the numbers match). That in turn will then improve the company's profitability. Last sentence: Renoncer au rattrapage aujourd’hui serait assurément le signal que le pillage du marché français peut continuer ŕ l’infini et assombrirait notre avenir pour longtemps. Where "le pillage" is the high level of taxes/charges mentioned in previous paragraphs.

They also say that, yes.

Surely they also mean taxes, yes. Again, I only had a very brief look at their annual report 2017 and couldn't find the detailed section which would have revealed whether they are getting a tax credit and on what level they get how much of it (AFKL group, KLM entity, AF entity).

My point remains: saying that only taxes/charges explain the poorer performance of AF is intellectually dishonest; the public us-versus-them attitude against KLM which after all is still part of the same company; pretending that they strike for a greater good - all of that I find strangely surreal.

San Gottardo

Not sure it would be replaced by JOON. Remember that JOON is an attempt to do something different than the main AF brand so as to justify a different wage structure. If the main brand falls away there'll be no more need to differentiate from it. You just bring in more competitive cost right from the start.

"AF is a profitable airline" - err, well. It's profitability is very weak. On top of that it is a very indebted company with a weak top line and a high cost structure, in permanent danger to miss industry trends in terms of value proposition for customers, and a rebellious and underproductive workforce. Not really a great company in my eyes.

PS:Just saw that brunos posted at the same time. Apologies for not taking that on board in my post

yvrcnx

Thank you brunos.
That's what I thought and I will have to plan accordingly. We are flying out on July 2nd from YVR via CDG to TLS and were going to spend 3 nights there before flying to Germany but I think I might move our flight to Germany by a day or two in case July 2nd is ending up to be a Strike day and the earliest we can fly out of YVR again would be on the 4th since it's not a daily flight.
While it would be to bad to miss the 3 days in Toulouse, my main concern is that we arrive in Toulouse 2 or 3 days later and can't make our flight to Germany which is going to be with a different airline.
Ticket was booked on miles and if I could switch to KLM I would but currently there is nothing available for the same number of miles.
I guess I'll just have to wait until May 23rd and hope for a good outcome.

thibderoc

San Gottardo

You're right, I misread that.

But then their argument makes even less sense ;-)

q

Rather interesting comments of the ex-CEO published in "La Tribune". Aside from the fact that he messed up ... well, here is a quote from that interview (copy and paste from www.latribune.fr)

"la compagnie [...] qui fonctionne trop souvent encore comme une entreprise publique, trčs verticale et trčs administrative, avec de grands silos. Ce phénomčne s'observe plutôt au sičge, dans les services centraux, les finances, les RH, la direction des opérations aériennes, tous les back offices administratifs, lŕ oů il n'y a pas eu assez d'évolutions en termes d'organisation, de management (...), de relations sociales, de relations entre les équipes et ŕ l'intérieur des équipes [...] Si le oui l'avait emporté, nous avions le projet que nous comptions lancer trčs vite, de refonder l'organisation et le modčle de management d'Air France"

So why is this no longer relevant? Perhaps because he was alone?

thibderoc

That’s what I was talking about in my previous post when I was asking for a rebuttal on that sentence. It makes no sense.!!!!!
Except if you consider that : the sooner they have the raise, the sooner the strike ends, and therefore, the sooner AF will stop loosing market shares

brunos

Indeed, very interesting.
It confirm many posts here.
AF is a very bureaucratic organization, retaining a state-enterprise culture with competing "silos" (ahqt I call tribes).
Sad that successive CEOs could do little to change it.
But that is not too surprising when most external hirings are done based on personal networks and past experience in State companies/Public administration. Being promoted to top (ot top-middle) management based on your success in AF field operations and without the golden diplomas is frowned upon.

I share San Gottardo's feeling that a dead and reborn AF would be the only realistic solution. But that's not going to happen and we are on the AZ slope, even if there are huge differences in the two situations.

bodory

+1

Hiring managers from very bureaucratic organizations is not the best way to get rid of your own bureaucratic structure...

AlicorporateUK

I know you made mention of the substantial differences between the 2 cases however AF is still a major player and, despite the recent turmoil, it has a very solid customer base, a robust structure together with an excellent product overall but, most importantly, it is based in a (relatively) financially stronger and politically stabler Country. AZ is no more than a 'regional' player these days (~100 aircraft as opposed to the 200+ back to the days when MXP was their main base, not only that but it feels like yesterday when they still operated with the 747s!) and I think we are all aware of the political influence from the various governments not to mention the current crisis. Unfortunately, though, they both share a particularly strong influence from the trade unions and not realising the potential damage arising from such 'spirals' could swiftly lead to unpredictable and treacherous scenarios, that's probably what your slope stands for.

G

brunos

You are quite right, but when I said "AZ slope", I was talking of the AZ many years ago, not today. I guess the AZ slippery slope started twenty years ago. AF has started on a bad slope too and that is not yesterday.

I would also question the "excellent product overall". I agree that it is not bad, but it is far from excellent overall, besides the frequent industrial actions.
No doubt that there have been improvements.
I hate the shape of the seats on domestic flights, but let me focus on longhaul seats;
F : AF now offer very few F seats. The A380 seats are antique (I flew them often). The 77W seats are standard F seats on 777s (plus a curtain). Ground services at CDG are exceptional, but onboard food/wine on the 77Ws are lacking due to the minimum number of pax (max 4 and usually just one or two). FYI I did a trip not long ago.
J : BEST are good seats and found on many airlines. But it is only found on half of AF longhaul planes and NEV is antique non-flat. The game of Russian roulette is infuriating. But AF lacks money to invest..As a frequent J flyer, that rules out AF unless forced to.
PE : A bad seat. All airlines that introduced a shell seat for PE replaced it by a reclining seat.
Y : ten across on 777s is sardine-seating. AF was a precursor and other airlines are following suit recently (CX, BA) .

Please don't get into a comparison with BA. We all agree that they don't offer an "excellent product overall"