Last editorial of 2017 on TravelGuys, a year full of twists and turns: some airlines disappeared like Airberlin, and others were created like Level. For the industry as a whole, it’s been a year of consolidation and profit taking… We’ll see over the course of the first quarter of 2018 who has benefited the most.

Let’s go back to the course of our national airline: If some colossal efforts have been made by the Air France-KLM group over the last 5 years, first with the Transform and then the Perform plans under de Juniac, notably on product and service, as well as on ground staff productivity, Jean-Marc Janaillac has inherited a a socially bankrupt airline, with categories of personnel that are in conflict with each other, a work in progress on the cost of labour that is far from being finished, a a new product of excellent quality but whose deployment is taking longer than expected, and finally a “Service Signatures” program that still needs to be strengthened on its base.

Air France’s domestic market is not as easy as that of its competitors

Let’s clarify things from the outset:when I talk about the domestic market, I am talking about customers who reside in France, not the domestic routes market.

Who are Air France’s competitors in Europe: mainly IAG (British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Level) and the Lufthansa group(Lufthansa, Eurowings, Swiss, Edelweiss, Brussels Airlines, Austrian, Niki and perhaps soon Alitalia).

When you look at all the countries of origin of these airlines (excluding Iberia – Spain and Brussels Airlines – Belgium), they benefit from a native market of rather well-off residents, and whose executives’ salaries are clearly higher than French salaries, for the same profession and experience, for their own socio-economic reasons.

Result: a greater propensity to spend more to travel, to look less at the price criterion in the choice of airlines.

As for Iberia and Brussels Airlines, thepricing policy of these airlines has been thoroughly revised when they were integrated into their respective groups, to fit the local market.

Air France therefore suffers from the lower purchasing power of the French, who are less inclined to travel in the front classes, are sensitive to the price in economy class and therefore choose primarily on this criterion. Add to that travel policies that are not very generous for French businesses and Air France pricing that does not benefit residents and the losing cocktail is almost complete!

As a result, Air France is looking for British, German, Swiss and other Austrians on their own territory, with fares that compete with the direct flights of national airlines. What is the real profitability of a Tunis-Peking sold 790 € round trip, or a Brussels-Dubai sold 1 350 €, knowing that the direct from Paris are at least twice as expensive?

The solution? Review the fare policy (excluding promotions) for departures from France, and push for corporate discounts in Business class to reverse the trend in the travel policies of major French companies.

Comparing the salaries of French, English, German and Emirati pilots is nonsense!

In order to review its fare policy, particularly downwards, Air France must work on its production costsand reduce them. In 15 years of transformation plans at the national airline,only the scum has finally been dealt with.

And the bad news is that for all these years, it is the ground staff and the headquarters staff who have been mostly affected. Why is it the wrong scum? Because the staff at the headquarters is neither plentiful nor well paid. And far from that. Bertrand and I being in the HR world, we can assure you that for equal positions and experience, the head office staff is paid 30 to 40% below the market. And young people, much less loyal than their elders to their business, will not be mistaken (as evidenced by the recent digital brain drain…).

If we look at the cabin crew, if they are obviously better paid than their colleagues from other national airlines such as Corsair or XL Airways,there is no difference.

For pilots, however, the equation is quite different. You will tell me: they are paid like at BA, EK or LH. Of course, it’s true.

But are we comparing the salaries of French executives with those of European or Emirati executives? No, and fortunately not, because we would be in trouble: the difference in net salary would fluctuate between 30 and 70% for Germany and the United Kingdom, and often more than double for the United Arab Emirates. The solution is obvious: the cost of pilots must be drastically reduced to the cost of a Dubai pilot, which means changing the conditions of employment by working much more or by drastically reducing the gross salary. Unrealistic? Socially yes, but isn’t this the only economic solution for Air France to be as competitive as its European colleagues?

And finally, the disgruntled pilots will always be able to go and work for our neighbors or in Dubai, but I think that most of them will remain attached to our country.

Changing the culture so that the bad day performance is already very good

All specialists in organizations and human resources will tell you: in change management, the culture pillar is the most difficult to address. And for good reason: culture is the DNA of the airline, it is what the staff has built on year after year.

And this DNA, at Air France, is based on interpersonal relations and initiative, including in-flight service protocols. While this culture sometimes allows us to be amazed by the level of service provided by a crew on a given flight, it sometimes allows for the most mediocre when the crew is tired or unmotivated (especially at the departure of stopovers that are sometimes an opportunity for too many parties).

While it is important to work in a good atmosphere, this atmosphere should never take precedence over serviceand should only serve the missions of the crews.

However, it is not entirely their fault if the service fluctuates: it is often due to a lack of written proceduresaround the simple service that the heterogeneity is often felt by passengers.

• Are we called by name? Sometimes.
• Are we served champagne as a welcome drink? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, you understand, there are taxes! (WTF ? For 10 € of taxes ?)
• Are we greeted by the purser ? Sometimes
• Is there a special effort for Platinum customers in Economy? Almost never, except for a laconic greeting at the end of the flight
• The answer to the call button? It’s getting better
• The number of dishes to choose from? It depends on the time, the stopover, etc.
• Full service or quick service? It depends on the stopover and the aircraft
• Champagne in Economy? Oh no, you are on a COI flight…

But wait, the passengers pay the same price! The protocol must therefore be the same all the time, the crews built for. If they can do “more”, so much the better, but there is a minimum and the role of the supervisors is to ensure that each passenger has the right to this minimum.

There is still work to be done, but service signatures are obviously about people, but they are also about more square processes.

TravelGuys wishes you happy holidays…

As we look forward to 2018, TravelGuys wishes you a happy holiday season, hoping that Santa will bring you beautiful trips in Business class, nice statuses, nice hotels and wonderful experiences. And if they forget about you, TravelGuys will help you get them on your own… Isn’t that more rewarding than waiting for miracles?