Air France faces fresh strikes by pilots, cabin crew and ground staff next week on top of the threat of being grounded today (March 30).
Unions representing staff across the airline have announced stoppages on Tuesday April 3 and Saturday April 7 in a dispute over pay.
A joint statement by 11 unions attacked Air France management for “not providing any concrete response” to the unions’ demands and said: “We will harden the pace of movement.”
The unions are demanding a 6% increase in salaries across the airline “to catch up with inflation”, arguing the Air France workforce has not received a general pay rise since 2011.
Air France management responded with a statement insisting: “The financial situation of the company makes this general increase impossible.”
The carrier has attempted to impose a 1% increase across the board, applied in two phases, with additional payments for ground workers, arguing any more would compromise “growth, investment and the resumption of hiring”.
Air France reported an operating profit of €588 million for 2017, contributing to a near €1.5 billion operating profit by the Air France-KLM group, but the airlines still finished the year with a net loss of €274 million.
The transport disruption in France next week will be exacerbated by a rolling series of strikes by rail workers on national network SNCF, due to begin on April 3 and to continue into June.