Gilbert Sedbon/PARIS
Air France chairman Christian Blanc has carried out a radical shake-up of the group's top management, which includes the departure of managing director Rodolphe Frantz.
Blanc, who has received strong backing from France's new centre-right Government, will now tighten his personal control of the group's management.
Reporting directly to Blanc will be two deputy managing directors: Patrick Durand, a former French Treasury official, who is in charge of economic and financial affairs; and Marc Veron of the Thomson-CSF electronics group, responsible for airline operations. Former United Airlines executive Rakesh Gangweil has also been hired as assistant on programming and development. United's former chairman, Stephen Wolf, already advises Blanc as chief counsellor.
The top job at Air Inter, left vacant by the surprise resignation of chairman Michel Bernard in May, will now be filled by Jean-Pierre Courcol, head of the Philippe Amaury publishing house. Courcol, will report directly to Blanc, as he takes on the task, of building Air Inter into a low cost carrier, feeding into Air France's long haul routes.
The management overhaul comes as Air France is struggling to reach its target of a 30% increase in efficiency, pledged as part of its three-year restructuring programme funded by FFr20 billion ($4.2 billion) in state aid. The programme is due to run until 1997, when the airline will also face the intensified competition expected to flow from the completion of European liberalisation.
"It is high time to have a coherent structure, so that Air France and Air Inter do not make mistakes, about either their objectives or their rivals" Blanc says.
He adds that, with full liberalisation approaching, "rigorous, disciplined and efficient" organisation is a necessity.
The management reshuffle resulted in part from damaging strikes led by the powerful pilots union in protest at the three-year productivity plan. Strikes have cost Air Inter a total of FFr350 million in the last 12 months.
Source: Flight International
