Air France pilot union says ready to resume talks with management
PARIS (Reuters) - Air France's main pilot union SNPL is ready to resume talks with the carrier's management over a planned restructuring, a union spokesman said on Thursday.
The airline's unions are up in arms over plans to cut 2,900 jobs at the struggling airline, a move that triggered a fracas on Monday with executives hounded from a meeting, their shirts torn from their backs.
Air France-KLM Chief Executive Alexandre de Juniac is expected to meet SNPL leaders alongside some of the company's executives on Friday.
A majority of SNPL's council voted in favour of a resumption of talks with management, spokesman Emmanuel Mistrali said.
"We want to resume negotiations, but we also want reasonable and justifiable efforts on behalf of pilots," he said.
A spokesman for Air France declined to comment.
Air France announced on Monday that it planned to cut 2,900 jobs, including 300 pilots, and shed 14 planes from its long-haul fleet by 2017 as part of a "plan B" following a breakdown of talks with cabin crew.
Ground staff trade unions long ago accepted the company's original, less draconian, cost-saving regime, in contrast to the pilots, who staged a strike a year ago that cost the company 500 million euros ($564 million).
The hardline CGT union has called on Air France unions to meet on Tuesday to decide whether to go ahead with strike plans.
(Reporting by Cyril Altmeyer; writing by Bate Felix; editing by David Clarke)
