If you hadn’t noticed, an Air France Boeing 787 was grounded for several weeks. Worse still, there was a real fear that other examples of the most modern aircraft in the fleet would follow the same path, or that the airline would have to lease one or more of its 787s to other airlines in order to compensate for the financial burden caused by aircraft that it paid for but did not operate.
787 grounded for lack of instructor pilots
The reason? A technical issue? A design flaw?
Not at all. A simple disagreement on the training of the pilots…or almost.
Air France simply did not have enough instructor pilots to continue flying these aircraft.
While waiting to have dedicated instructor pilots for the 787, an aircraft that recently arrived in the fleet, Air France was having its 787 pilots trained and monitored by Boeing 777 pilots under an agreement with the pilots’ unions that expired on April 30. The instructor pilots returned to the 777 and Air France was no longer able to meet its obligations in terms of pilot training and follow-up.
A disguised negotiating lever?
This non-renewal had little to do with the 787 since, although they defended themselves, it was quite obvious that it was only a lever for the SNPL to put pressure on the airline on the negotiations on salaries in progress, which were the cause of a strike that put the finances of the airline at risk.
With the resignation of Jean-Marc Janaillacand the (temporary?) suspension of the strike, this negotiation instrument lost its interest and an agreement was finally signed this Monday on the training of 787 pilots.
This does not mean that we should expect to see 787s in Air France livery again in the next few weeks. The backlog in monitoring and training cannot be cleared overnight, and it will take some time before crews can be reassembled.
Not sure the airline needed that.
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