KLM’s president and CEO Pieter Elbers has told a Dutch TV station suggestions that his airline will abandon its partnership with troubled Air France are ‘unrealistic’.
Elbers was speaking to the Buitenhof programme, ahead of a meeting by the Air France-KLM board today (Tuesday), which will decide on an interim leadership team following the resignation of Air France CEO Jean-Marc Janillac.
Janillac resigned on May 4 after failing to persuade Air France workers to accept the management’s latest pay increase proposal.
Elbers said KLM had benefited from the increased scale of the joint company, created in 2004, and the two businesses needed each other, Reuters reports.
"Just as it’s not feasible for KLM to continue independently, it’s also not feasible for Air France to go on alone," he said in the televised interview.
"That’s the strength of the combination, we need each other badly."
Elbers said profits at Air France had totalled €500 million in recent years, while strikes this year by its workers had cost the company €400 million.
He said that, although workers have a right to strike, doing so ‘brings, in my view, an enormous responsibility with it’.
"Not every goal justifies using any means."
He added hopes the French government would rescue the company were an ‘illusion’ because state aid is forbidden by European Union law, Reuters added.
