Air France would indeed not intend to hire and train

Jean-Cyril Spinetta, the President and CEO of Air France-KLM, will unwittingly stole the features the economy Minister, Christine Lagarde, yesterday, at the opening of terminal 2 G of Roissy-CDG 2. Come extol the merits of this new building entirely dedicated to the regional companies of the Air France group, the pattern of Air France-KLM successively confirmed the ambitions of his group in the rail, returning on the Alitalia dossier, as well as its participation in the tender for Austrian Airlines.

On the first topic, Jean - Cyril Spinetta has simply confirmed that his company "was a rail activity with Veolia Transportation". "But no actual decision was taken," he said, in response to information from press announcing the conclusion of an agreement with Veolia as of September 15. At the general meeting of the group, in July, the President and CEO of Air France-KLM had announced the opening of negotiations with Veolia Transport, "with the emergence of a new player of high-speed rail on the European stage, in the framework of the next liberalisation of the transport of passengers in Europe for purpose".

Possibility of trains Air France

"We look if, as of 2010, there are economic and commercial interest to seek to operate with TGV in terms of profitability", he explained, knowing that the opening to competition of the SNCF network would be limited to international services, at least until 2015, with however the opportunity to capture traffic of cabotage, under certain conditions to specify (see page 25).

The objective for Air France would continue to offer its customers an offer with its claw on links Paris-province for which the aircraft would no longer be a cost-effective alternative to the TGV. "For an airline losing touch with the market of the businessmen, who need to move on France in a way, is a very serious risk." "If we lose this contact, because the TGV attracts these clients and overrides to us, we weakening for the future, significantly, the company Air France", he explained in July. "We came to the conclusion that we should explore the possibility of Air France in connection with an operator specialized on logistics plan and the knowledge of the railway, to the train line Air France on a number of destinations.

Remains to know what shape will take this future subsidiary. Air France would indeed not intend to hire and train. And instead of buying a TGV trainsets, the group could simply by Charter, at least to start.

So Air France-KLM could also have to pay several tens of millions of euros, in case his candidacy for Alitalia and Austrian would be finally adopted. For the Italian company, Jean-Cyril Spinetta repeated that it would be this time of a minority stake, denying the existence of a pact aimed at taking control of Alitalia at the crossing. The objective would be only to maintain the current commercial partnership described as "strategic". However, in the case of Austrian, CEO of Air France-KLM simply announced that he would offer, concurrent with Lufthansa and a dozen other candidates, which could therefore lead to a takeover of the Austrian company.