Omicron: why Air France is spared from cascading flight cancellations

If the sky is darkening for many airlines, forced to cancel thousands of flights in the face of the breakthrough of the Omicron variant, everything seems to be going for the best on Air France’s side. The French company has indeed canceled some flights “because of technical or meteorological problems”, but “nothing to do with Omicron”, a spokesperson for the company told Liberation. The transporter thus manages to maintain 79% of its activity compared to its pre-crisis level.

A situation due to the aid that the French State has allocated to companies in France, and in particular to partial unemployment from which Air France has benefited. The company has thus avoided the waves of layoffs that have affected its competitors, hit hard by the almost total cessation of global air traffic, at the height of the crisis in 2020 and 2021. A situation that allows it today to more easily replace its staff affected by Covid-19 and to avoid canceling some of its flights.

“Small tension”

“Some have fired or retired nearly 50% of their pilots,” said an aviation specialist in Le Figaro. At Air France, job cuts have also taken place, but to a lesser extent: 7,500 departures in June 2020 out of a workforce of more than 80,000 employees, pilots, cabin crew and ground-based staff included. Thus, when traffic resumed in the summer of 2021, when its competitors were already under tension, Air France benefited from a “relief cushion” in order to absorb absences, linked to the Covid or not, specifies the company.

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With the arrival of the Omicron variant, the trend is further accentuated. “Unlike the American and Chinese airlines, we have reserve crews, pilots and stewards, who can be called in at any time when there are shortages,” assures an Air France spokesperson at Liberation. A slightly more nuanced finding on the part of the National Union of Commercial Flight Personnel (SNPNC) which admits that there is a “small tension” on the side of the pilots.