Riviera sky: hello to Air Lib, peace for Air Littoral

AOM-Air Liberté becomes Air Lib, while the social peace is under way at Air Littoral. But Swissair’s former subsidiaries are experiencing a very bad airline context.

This is a new name which will not be too hard to have in mind. For many people already, Air liberté was Air Lib. This is now the official name as it has been announced by François Bachelet, the president of the board of directors, on Thursday morning at Top Resa Deauville. And we will have to forget about AOM name. The AOM company, now painfully merged to Air Liberté, is disappearing for Air Lib.Will Air France be able to keep its recruitment promise ?The new start, confirmed in front of tourism professionals gathered in Deauville, is still darkened by the turmoil that the whole air industry has to deal with after the tragic attacks in America. The opening of the Paris-Alger, which is still top of the agenda, risks to create huge security problems. While Air France’s difficulties are likely to jeopardize recruitments which have been promised to employees laid off by AOM-Air Liberté. And this in spite of the current denials made by Jean-Claude Gayssot.The Secretary of Transports has confirmed that the recruitment freezing decided by Air France did not concern the 200 AOM-Air Liberté employees already integrated nor the 400 others who are about to be recruited. However, the layoffs done by most of the airline companies in the world can worry the involved employees.A decreasing national traffic on the airport Nice Côte d’AzurA little good news: on the Paris-Nice line, Air Lib, which provides fifteen daily flights, has announced they have increased their occupancy coefficient to 60% (as against 25% in the crisis). Another reassuring news is for Swissair’s other former subsidiary, Air Littoral. As it was announced in the agreements negotiated between managers and trade unions last September 10th, a “solemn social peace declaration” was signed on Wednesday September 19th. This text which tends to “prevent any social conflict for three years” plans that the strike notice must be up to three months in order to have more opportunities to find an agreement before the strike begins.The airport of Nice Côte d’Azur which, for the first time in many years, has his traffic in stagnation (+ 0.4% over the first six months of 2001), is particularly interested in the destiny of these companies. The net slowdown is due to the decrease by 7.6% experienced on the national traffic while the international traffic has kept on growing (+ 9.6%). This decrease on the national traffic is mainly linked to AOM-Air Liberté and Air Littoral’s difficulties.About the strategy on Nice of these two Swissair’s former subsidiaries, see the interviews of François Bachelet for Air Lib and Pierre-Stéphane Aussi for Air Littoral, interviews which are published by Azur Entreprises, the magazine of the Chamber of Commerce and quoted on the CCI website ("AOM-Air Liberté - Air Littoral Quelles sont leurs stratégies à Nice ?").