[Anonymous]

[JohnHarper]

I see the threatened strike by Air France pilots which would have caused disruption during the current month has been called off.

http://www.thelocal.fr/20140502/strike-french-pilots-call-off-month-long-strike

[MarcusUK]

Thank you for posting this John.

I saw in the last few days, my shares drop 7% at first no reasons why, but clearly linked to this.

KLM has been making a profit for some years, and it is apparently obvious that AF combine the group and do not report the two airlines with and differential. It would be very good to see AF / KLM figures separately and see where the losses emerge, clearly with AF.

The Management style as mentioned very much on the forum , is quite different, with KLM’s democratic style and negotiation rather than confrontation, clearly a more decent and better Business strategy.

The whole group has been turning round, and KLM has done its job some years ago. Such action could not just severely affect this recovery but ruin almost, the Airline Group if it went on as planned.

Very unfair to the KLM side again, such a pity they cannot be run as different Airlines again. They have no comparison of service , attitude or reliability over any aspect of their business at all. I have had very poor flights with AF…over 2 years every single time, long or short haul.
I will not fly them ever again.

[AnthonyDunn]

I have often wondered to myself what it must be like being a phlegmatic Dutchman in KLM saddled to an Air France reflecting its population’s aversion to change and truculence whenever anyone tries to address the rather basic structural flaws in parts of the French economic system.

“What if’s” abound but …if only the European Commission had not put the mockers on the early attempted merger of BA/KLM all those years ago. And perhaps it would have been possible to have had a rather larger element of consultative Dutch management skills rather than WW’s “ram it down their throats until they get used to it” school of management.

[BigDog.]

AnthonyDunn – 02/05/2014 18:37 GMT

+1

Yes it would have been a far better fit. The northern European/ Anglo Saxons have a far different culture and ethics when compared with Latins/Med.

[christopheL]

The mixture or cultures is a good thing. The AF/KLM merger has been à success. Let´s hope that the IB/BA one will succeed as well. Unfortunately, BD and LH did not fit perfectly well even if (because ?) both were northern European / Anglo Saxon airlines.

[Author]

Posts