Toulouse (AFP)

"Daddy, don't you go to Paname": a hundred Air France flight personnel demonstrated Sunday at Toulouse-Blagnac airport against the management's plan to close the three provincial bases in Marseille, Nice and Toulouse.

"Air France is sacrificing the Capitol for the capital", could one read on one of the signs brandished by the demonstrators, some of whom came with their children.

"On February 1, we learned informally that the management wanted to close the three provincial bases created between 2011 and 2012," Stéphane Pasqualini, member of the National Union of Commercial Flight Personnel (SNPNC), attached to FO told AFP. .

"By setting up people in the provinces, the company no longer had to pay hotel or transport costs. It was therefore basically a strategy to compete with low-cost companies who, for their part, understood the interest in being based in the provinces ", continues this flight attendant at Air France.

Questioned in March by AFP, the management of Air France had confirmed that it was studying "the closure of its provincial bases for its flight personnel as part of the restructuring of its domestic network".

"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.

In total, 360 flight personnel on the three bases would be affected by these closures, including 117 in Toulouse, according to Mr. Pasqualini, who evokes a "sword of Damocles" for the families concerned.

Pierre, a 34-year-old flight attendant based in Toulouse, is also angry.

"When the base opened, I bought a house with my companion and today we live in this permanent fear of having to leave the Toulouse region because journeys with Paris are complex to manage and will have a significant financial cost. ", he testifies.

A similar demonstration had already taken place in Marseille on March 28.

In 2020, the pandemic caused the Air France-KLM group to lose 7.1 billion euros, with a collapse of 59% of its turnover compared to 2019. And Thursday, the group announced that it had suffered a new net loss of 1.5 billion euros in the first quarter of 2021.

© 2021 AFP