Air France staff plan four more days of April strikes

Air France customers face further frustration later this month after unions announced a further four days of action on top of a two-day strike next week in an ongoing pay dispute.

Ten unions representing staff at the airline announced 48-hour walkouts on April 17 and 18, and again on April 23 and 24. The last three newly announced strike days coincide with planned walkouts by rail workers.

Unions have already announced that Air France staff will strike on April 7, 10 and 11.

The announcement came following an unsuccessful meeting with Air France bosses, which the unions denounced as "sham", as it warned that strikes would continue until a 6% pay rise across the board, to compensate for inflation rises since 2011, was agreed.

Unions rejected an offer to set up "a complementary salary adjustment mechanism for staff whose individual salaries would have increased less rapidly than inflation between 2011 and 2017".

On Wednesday, at the meeting with the intersyndicale, management again proposed negotiating "the establishment of a complementary salary adjustment mechanism for staff whose individual salaries would have increased less rapidly than inflation between 2011 and 2017". The proposal was again rejected by the unions, which left after less than three-quarters of an hour of discussion.

The pay dispute has already prompted four days of strikes since February, most recently on April 3, when one in four flights were cancelled.

Staff are demanding a 6% increase, which they say will be in line with inflation since 2011. Management is offering a general rise of 1% and an average rise of 1.4% for ground staff.

In a statement last week, Air France said that, “the rise seen by our staff will average 4.5% across the year, including individual rises and extra interest”.

A press release from the unions disputed this, saying that management was “seeking division” and “giving no concrete response to our demands”.