What's the future for AOM?
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What's the future for AOM?
Can anybody throw some light on what's happening with the major French airline AOM.
I know they had a union meeting earlier this week, and with the company rumoured to be on the verge of financial collapse. I'm wondering what is in the immediate future for them?
Anybody please???
Cheers.
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Well AOM is basically going down the tube.
From the beginning on it always was window dressing for for the European commission and good Sir Leon Brittan, to introduce competition in a very regulated market, very much like the Aussie market not so long ago.
Owning 99 % of Air France you'd have to be very naïve to think the State ( Capital S !! ) was going to shoot itself in the foot and when push came to shove the choice was easy : 20 billions went to Air France to save it from the very fate AOM is facing.
Now on top of this doom struck with Swissair getting into this by bending ( just a tiny little bit ) the European law. A non EU member operator may not hold the majority of shares in a EU member airline. Easy to circumvate with the help of Baron Antoine-Sellieres ( Yeap ! We do have Barons ) head of French industry's owners who put the 51 % with the hidden assurance that it would be 100 % money back if and when things went wrong. This guy put a little dwarf called Alexandre Couvelaire at the helm and this was the last nail to AOM's coffin as Mr Couvelaire's record for running compagnies to the ground has been outstanding.
Everyone is running for cover, the Swiss, his lordship the good Baron, Mr Couvelaire's phone seems to have been disconnected and the french government is left in the dunk facing the shafting of 260 pilots ( huge in this country and a lot of them having gone into debts to finance ratings like the F 100 ) and several hundreds of others cabin and ground jobs.
Air France has been called to mop up the casualties but its chairman is not at all keen, actually, no one is.
Virgin seems to be hovering around AOM and Air Liberte but the differences of business culture in France and the UK are so huge that it will hurt. I really can't see Richard Branson's sort of fun way catching on french unions !! Somehow the very word British seems to have nuked their sense of humour. Wonder why ?
Now one thing : No one talks about Air Littoral who is part of the whole smash and this very loud silence only means that their fate has been sealed. In this case this is an entire compagny going down.
Finally the rescue plan presented to the board of employees was to drastically reduce the fleet, leaving MD 90's and old DC10 's to fly to the west indies, the indian ocean and Tahiti. Domestically only a handfull of destinations would remain.
Air France doesn't want to see AOM go down as this would mean under capacity on the West Indies where Air France has to maintain " Territorial continuity " a bit like let's say Tasmania and the yield is very poor. Rather let people like AOM fly this and redeploy the fleet on more rewarding destinations.
Now traditionally the french pilots have never been expatriate minded and if you think about it you only have a handfull who work abroad. This will make it difficult for those guys to find another job although the actual pilot's shortage may soothen this a little bit.
From the beginning on it always was window dressing for for the European commission and good Sir Leon Brittan, to introduce competition in a very regulated market, very much like the Aussie market not so long ago.
Owning 99 % of Air France you'd have to be very naïve to think the State ( Capital S !! ) was going to shoot itself in the foot and when push came to shove the choice was easy : 20 billions went to Air France to save it from the very fate AOM is facing.
Now on top of this doom struck with Swissair getting into this by bending ( just a tiny little bit ) the European law. A non EU member operator may not hold the majority of shares in a EU member airline. Easy to circumvate with the help of Baron Antoine-Sellieres ( Yeap ! We do have Barons ) head of French industry's owners who put the 51 % with the hidden assurance that it would be 100 % money back if and when things went wrong. This guy put a little dwarf called Alexandre Couvelaire at the helm and this was the last nail to AOM's coffin as Mr Couvelaire's record for running compagnies to the ground has been outstanding.
Everyone is running for cover, the Swiss, his lordship the good Baron, Mr Couvelaire's phone seems to have been disconnected and the french government is left in the dunk facing the shafting of 260 pilots ( huge in this country and a lot of them having gone into debts to finance ratings like the F 100 ) and several hundreds of others cabin and ground jobs.
Air France has been called to mop up the casualties but its chairman is not at all keen, actually, no one is.
Virgin seems to be hovering around AOM and Air Liberte but the differences of business culture in France and the UK are so huge that it will hurt. I really can't see Richard Branson's sort of fun way catching on french unions !! Somehow the very word British seems to have nuked their sense of humour. Wonder why ?
Now one thing : No one talks about Air Littoral who is part of the whole smash and this very loud silence only means that their fate has been sealed. In this case this is an entire compagny going down.
Finally the rescue plan presented to the board of employees was to drastically reduce the fleet, leaving MD 90's and old DC10 's to fly to the west indies, the indian ocean and Tahiti. Domestically only a handfull of destinations would remain.
Air France doesn't want to see AOM go down as this would mean under capacity on the West Indies where Air France has to maintain " Territorial continuity " a bit like let's say Tasmania and the yield is very poor. Rather let people like AOM fly this and redeploy the fleet on more rewarding destinations.
Now traditionally the french pilots have never been expatriate minded and if you think about it you only have a handfull who work abroad. This will make it difficult for those guys to find another job although the actual pilot's shortage may soothen this a little bit.
