Paris (AFP)

Shaken by the Covid-19 crisis, the Air France group plans to cut more than 7,500 jobs by the end of 2022 as part of its new strategy, including around 6,500 within the French company and over 1,000 within the company AFP regional, learned AFP Tuesday from union sources.

The direction must present Friday to the trade union organizations the consequences on the employment of its "plan of reconstruction", which envisages a frank cut in the internal connections.

It will unveil an updated version of forecast employment and skills management (GPEC) by the end of 2022, during an extraordinary central social and economic committee (CSEC) at Roissy's headquarters for Air France and during 'an extraordinary CSE at Nantes Airport for Hop !.

Within the historic company, the 6,560 positions eliminated (out of just over 41,000 full-time equivalent permanent contracts) will be partially (3,500) via natural departures not replaced and partly via voluntary departures, even if forced departures do not are not excluded for the staff of the short-haul network, according to several union sources and a document consulted by AFP in advance of the CSEC.

- Particularly targeted short-haul

These departures should go through collective agreement ruptures (RCC) for cabin crew. The SNPL, the majority pilots union at Air France, has already validated an RCC for around 400 positions. The hostesses and stewards are still negotiating with management, which aims to "significantly reduce, (...) from the 4th quarter of 2020", an overstaffing estimated at 1,680 positions in 2021.

For ground staff, the management assesses the overstaffing at 2,630 positions (excluding natural departures that have not been replaced) and is moving towards "a PDV-PSE project" (voluntary departure plan-job safeguarding plan, editor's note) intended to "support job cuts by prioritizing volunteering", according to the document consulted. For the short-haul network, which is particularly targeted, an internal job offer will be offered to those who did not wish to take the POS.

Contacted by AFP, the management of Air France said it wanted to reserve "the scoop of the presentation of its strategic directions and their impact in terms of employment to social partners and employee representative bodies, which it will meet on Friday at course of a CSEC ".

"The lasting decline in activity and the economic context linked to the Covid-19 crisis require accelerating the transformation of Air France," she said, saying she wanted to prioritize "volunteering and mobility".

-Closure of sites-

The regional company Hop !, which currently has some 2,400 full-time equivalent positions from union sources, will be particularly affected by the job cuts: just over 1,000 are to disappear. Its maintenance sites in Morlaix and Lille as well as its flight crew base in Toulouse are threatened, affirm concordant sources.

"Hop Morlaix is ​​an industrial aircraft maintenance and pilot training site (...) connected to a professional high school which trains in the aeronautical professions. See it leaving for Nantes or elsewhere for financial reasons. has no meaning ", denounced on Twitter the (socialist) president of the Brittany region, Loïg Chesnais-Girard.

The shock linked to the Covid-19 epidemic was unprecedented for the Air France group as for its international rivals, who have chained announcements in recent weeks in their workforce cuts: 22,000 at the German group Lufthansa, 12,000 at British Airways or 10,000 for the American Delta Air Lines.

The French State, shareholder of Air France-KLM, provided financial support of 7 billion euros to the Franco-Dutch group, including 4 billion guaranteed bank loans and 3 billion direct loan, asking it to improve its profitability and its environmental impact. In response, the director general of Air France-KLM, Benjamin Smith, announced in late May the reduction of the French network (loss-making) by 40% by the end of 2021.

"I had understood that these aids, these loans, it was to maintain employment, even to develop employment", denounced the number one of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, interviewed during the demonstration of hospital staff in Paris.

Air France unions also fear a transfer of certain domestic routes to the group's low-cost, Transavia.

"Taking advantage of the decline in activity due to the epidemic, bosses and government want to step in and cut thousands of jobs, permanently weakening the company," lashed out in a statement, the South Air union. He called for a rally at Air France headquarters on Friday during the CSEC, as did the CGT.

© 2020 AFP