An Air France plane at Nice Côte d’Azur airport (illustration) – Lionel Urman / Sipa USA / SIPA
- Air France is studying a project to “close its provincial bases for its flight personnel” in Nice, Marseille and Toulouse.
- Christian Estrosi and Renaud Muselier, president and deputy president of the Paca region, ask the company not to “renounce this establishment”.
The management of Air France confirmed it Sunday after a demonstration of its employees. It is indeed studying “the closure of its provincial bases for its aircrew”. Those of Nice, Marseille and Toulouse are in the hot seat. A project which “would threaten 300 jobs”, worried this Monday Renaud Muselier and Christian Estrosi, in a letter addressed to Anne Rigail, the general manager of the company.
The president and deputy president of the Paca region are calling for their “maintenance” of “clarifications”. “Give up this establishment at this precise moment of the crisis […] back to life, travel and travel […] does not appear to us to be desirable for our territories, nor satisfactory for the future of Air France ”in the region, they write.
“Mobility within the company”
Sunday, 80 employees demonstrated at Marseille-Provence airport, believing that the company “sacrificed the province”. “This development should be the subject of prior discussions and negotiations with the trade unions and all the employees concerned who would be offered mobility within the company,” she said.
The LR deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti addressed him to the Minister of the Economy. He asks Bruno Le Maire “to prevent this closure by making the maintenance of the base a sine qua non condition in obtaining new public aid”.
The Air France-KLM group lost 7.1 billion euros in 2020 due to the pandemic with a collapse of 59% of its turnover. The workforce fell by more than 10% in the year with 8,600 departures. And current plans should accompany around 900 additional departures from KLM and 4,900 from Air France.