Air France Pilot Union Says Ready to Resume Talks with Management

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 favor 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 EUR500 million (US$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.