[AnthonyDunn]

Listening to this last Saturday’s “From our own correspondent” on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC’s Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield’s story of the optician explained it all: France is a deeply conservative society when it comes to defending jobs, privileges and “rights” even when these trample all over the ability of others to obtain goods and services at a cheaper (more affordable?) price.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j9ymc

Whether it is taxi drivers, airline pilots, train drivers, opticians, pharmacists or whoever, just don’t anyone imagine that those hard-won rights are going to be given up easily and without massive disruption.

[GrahamSmith]

The strike has now been called off… although no agreement has been reached.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/100908/air-france-pilots-strike-called-off

[SimonS1]

I would like to thank Air France for striking.

Going to Mauritius on EK last week I was upgraded. Apparently all the EK flights were rammed full due to people being rerouted as a result of AF cancellations.

As for AF themselves? Wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. Always a risk of some industrial dispute/air traffic problems and CDG is a dump.

[MrMichael]

The strike is off because AF capitulated to the unions. You cannot have a union, any union, deciding the strategy for a companys future, but this seems to be exactly what has happened. Whether the Transavia option was a good one for AF or not, it was for AF and its shareholders to decide. You are now left with exactly what Maggie Thatcher said should not happen, the lunatics running the asylum (did she say that?)…

As Marcus says, Air France are in a sorry state, tatty planes, questionable safety record (I said that, not Marcus), surely and dull service, strikes. The future can only now be more of the same until the whole sorry edifice comes crashing down….possibly taking KLM with it. I rarely use AF, no need to go to France and would not choose to use it as a transit even given the sometimes favourable connections given my local airport is Southampton. I do use KLM a few times a year and find them just fine, prefer BA, but no probs using KLM.

[Charles-P]

The current social costs of employing people in France mean we run our entire French operation from Belgium. We closed our Paris office because of the ridiculous cost of doing business in the country. I wrote a long letter to the Mayor explaining our decision and regretting the loss of the jobs there, I received a reply telling me that our company was likely to receive a fine for failing to tell the authorities soon enough of our choice to close !
I know of customers there who all have stories about staff who once they have racked up sufficient years service do more or less nothing safe in the knowledge they have jobs for life.

[MrMichael]

Sounds like the UK in the late 70’s, the “sick man of europe” where the unions ran the country and the politicians ate sandwiches and drank beer with them….in the case of France no doubt it is a glass of wine and a baguette.

[Charles-P]

‘MrMichael’ – Regretfully that is a very fair comparison. In certain industries the unions are all powerful and have a culture of entitlement that is difficult to understand outside of France.

I deal with the Air Traffic Control industry and controllers in France are currently blocking masses of improvements under the SESAR recommendations because they are not going to receive more money for implementing them. This despite the fact their workload will decrease, their stress levels will fall and they will be contributing to improved air services within the Eurocontrol sector of operation. Their argument is a simple one, “we are doing something different so we demand more money” !

[AMcWhirter]

Easyjet was another beneficiary of the AF strike.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/100923/air-france-strike-boosts-easyjet-profits-by-A-p

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