Me Myself: You seem to be well informed yourself. Sorry for my ignorance.
1. Can you explain how much pension the average AF pilot (let's say 30 years with the company) gets from CRPNAC and how much he or she gets from the state pension.
2. Is it reasonable to call a 4 day strike against your airline for a measure taken by your government? This strike must have cost AF/KLM tens of millions.
3. The measure taken by the government is (the intention of) raising the maximum age for a class I medical to 65 years, like in the rest of Europe.
Also the Dutch pilots have a maximum age of 65 for a class I medical and all Dutch airlines under the umbrella of AF/KLM still retire at age 56.
So, what's the problem?
Let's start with question 3
As Australiancalou has explained, what happened is the first stage of a plan which in the mid / long term, will see the pilots fund be merged with the general french pension fund ( Aigirc / Arco ) which by the way has lost 600 millions on the market recently !!! ( yesterday's paper )
This means 41 years at the helm and a shocking pension.
Right now, an AF pilots after 30 years gets about 30 % of his last salary.
A guy I know, retired 744 captain, gets just above 6000 Euros, before income tax after more than 30 years with AF.
And I forgot to mention the lump summ equal to 9 months salary since going at 60 was regarded as furlough. You can multiply 15000 by 9, this should be just about right.
Invested at a secure 5% a year, this gives the incridible boost of ........................625 euros a month before tax.
If you think this is lavish then I'll have to reassess my set of values.
All this has been very poorly explained by French ALPA too riddled by inner tensions : The chairman and a few blokes are in favour of 65 when 65 % of the council voted against resuming work last Saturday.
If the Dutch governement is to be trusted ( not for me to say ) the french governement clearly isn't and your point on french diplomacy is right on the money. Like I have said eralier, the french government's word isn't worth more than a huge pile of dung.
They've taken us across the dance floor sending us reassuring letters saying that nothing would be done without proper negociations, german style ( Coming from Sarkozy who loathes the germans, this is really rich ) while some 95 !!! guys belonging to a very dodgy group calling itself PNT65 were lobbying parliament in favour of 65. When you have a look at the list of people who make this dubious groop of PNT 65, you see they are almost all:
- Close to retirement and scared like hell to have to walk the street in civies
- Been married just about a bezillion times
- Are ex military not having logged enough pension time with the civilian system.
There's even one who's lost his licence and only God knows why, has made this his own personal crusade. Things one do to stay away from the wife. Sometime marry the same one only 20 years younger !!!
In this paticular case, this good gentleman was even a French ALPA Vice President; an elected mole if you like.
All this talk about " personal choice " is a farce. Sorry, there are cases where your own little nostril isn't the f.....g center of the world and the law of the majority applies.
The " on a volontary basis " bit would make a wooden horse crack up with laughter. These guys are just doing the governement bidding and they either do not give a rat's ass about the consequences or worse, are not even aware of it.
In the end, all this is going to bite these gentlemen in the toush. None of them will have logged 41 years even when 65 comes, if they're not dead by then. They will have to go with the new general system and I bet ya that you'll find them pledging everlasting loyalty to French ALPA to get out of this mess, just like 60 years ago some turned into fearless and loyal resistants. Seems to run in the genes in this country.
Some have already packed their pension and will of course never be impacted by this twist of fate and will have the satisfaction of having really screwed up a lot of their former colleague's life.
It seems to me that these guys cannot accept that one ages, gets ill...........and dies. Yeap !! That's what happens as unpleasant as the prospect is.
Singing 65 like a mantra isn't going to stop them from one eating the dafodills by the roots one day.
" We " on the other hand, would like to have a life after work, the financial means to be able to do that and not choke right after parking brake has been set. I hate staying inside and don't ever mention decorating or gardening !!! It smells death.
Last, loss of money for the compagny during the strike:
AF lost 500 Mill on a fine it had to pay the US governement after it tried to fix up freight prices with several other airlines, among which Lufthansa.
Somehow our dear friends from across the Rhine started feeling the heat under their toushy and accepted the very honourable offter from the US governement to blow the wistle on us provided they walked away clean. DONE !!
AF didn't trumpet that one I can assure you .............nor did Lufthansa by the way. I still haven't found a name for this. Help ???
I am not about to loose sleep over a mere 100 Mill the strike costed the compagny after such a blunder.