The 2,420 employees of the company Hop! hold their breath. This Wednesday August 12 at 9 a.m. a new extraordinary economic and social committee (CSE) of the regional subsidiary of Air France-KLM is held. In Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), at the company's head office, management must detail the figures for job cuts as well as the planned flight reductions.
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As part of its restructuring, the Air France group announced a voluntary departure plan providing in particular for the elimination of 1,007 jobs at Hop !, ie half of the subsidiary's workforce. In detail, management had specified at the end of July that this would concern 404 positions of ground staff, 286 positions of cabin crew and 317 positions of technical flight personnel.
The president of Hop !, Pierre-Olivier Bandet, had indicated that the management's objective was "to find as many solutions as possible on a voluntary basis" , specifying that "if at the end of this process we remain in a situation overstaffing ”, the company would not rule out“ forced departures by 2023 ”. The first job cuts are due in early 2021.
Drastic reduction in national flights
The first meeting organized on Friday August 1 between the management and the union bodies had come to an end. The latter had filed an offense of obstruction. The day before, nearly 300 angry employees, pilots, hostesses, stewards, mechanics and other ground staff from all over France, had gathered in front of the headquarters of Hop! In Nantes.
The group wants to reduce its national flights by 40%, by eliminating the regional lines with the most losses. Its fleet should also be drastically reduced by 2023, from 71 to 32 aircraft. The strategy is to refocus the company on Roissy and Lyon, and to close the sites in Lille and Morlaix (Finistère). Flights from Orly to Mulhouse, Clermont-Ferrand and Nantes should therefore be abandoned.
Last year, Air France's domestic network suffered a loss of 200 million euros, of which 80 million was attributed to Hop! The Covid-19 pandemic has only worsened the situation and darkened the future. The Air France group (including subsidiaries) plans to cut more than 7,500 jobs by the end of 2022, including around 6,500 within the company itself.
