BRITISH AIRWAYS and Virgin Express have emerged among the bidders for Air Liberté, the embattled French independent carrier which has been given six months to secure its future.
British Airways made its offer through its French subsidiary TAT. Together, the two airlines would give BA a major slice of the French domestic and regional market and control of 22% of the slots at Paris Orly Airport. Air Liberté is estimated to have 12% of the French domestic market from Orly, but found it difficult to win new slots.
Richard Branson has also entered the fray with plans to expand his low-cost Virgin Express operation, set up earlier this year after Virgin took control of Brussels-based EuroBelgian Airlines.
Both UK airlines face competition from a powerful French grouping led by the president of travel group Novelle Frontieres, Jacques Maillot, who aims to create an independent French carrier able to rival the Air France group in the domestic market.
Maillot has also expressed an interest in French regional AOM, which is being sold off by the Government agency which is responsible for divesting former assets of the state-owned Credit Lyonnais bank. Maillot aims to assemble a group including Royal Air Maroc, which has a close relationship with Nouvelle Frontieres through the holiday-charter business.
A fourth concern, led by AOM pilot Fernand Danan, has also made an offer on behalf of the airline's staff.
BA has offered to pay just Fr25 million ($5 million) for Air Liberté but would have to take on debts which are now running at around Fr1.5 billion. Losses have also been mounting at the carrier, ending the first nine months of the year with a deficit of Fr650 million. BA says that it will take on 1,250 of the airline's permanent staff.
It would also maintain the airline's existing routes on domestic services and to French dependencies in the Caribbean region, as well as the bulk of the fleet which consists of seven McDonnell Douglas MD-83s, four DC-10s and four Boeing 737-200s.
BA says that Air Liberté would continue as a distinct company, but within a new French holding company overseen by newly installed TAT president Marc Rochet, who recently came from AOM. Once the TAT/Air Liberté group is back in profit, BA adds that its plan is to invite French investors to take a stake in the business.
Administrators in charge of deciding Air Liberté's future will rule on the bids before the end of October, given the airline's precarious financial state.
Source: Flight International
