Air France rapidly grows Marseille base but with swift network changes along the way

Marseille Provence Airport was Air France's first "provincial base" and opened in Oct-2011 with 13 new routes and a new organizational structure allowing for more efficient use of its aircraft and crew. Setting up bases in secondary French cities is one component of the French carrier's turnaround strategy, which is aimed at returning its short and medium-haul operations to profitability while also curbing the growth of low-cost carriers and regaining part of the market share it lost to high-speed rail.

The carrier has steadily increased its route network from Marseille and has shown firm determination not to be intimidated by Ryanair, Europe's largest and most aggressive LCC. LCCs have a 24% share of the weekly seat capacity at the French airport and Ryanair has a 20% share, but Air France is by far and large the airport's largest operator with 101,902 weekly seats and a capacity share of 38% for the week of 11-Jun-2012 to 17-Jun-2012. Sister airline KLM deploys an additional 6080 seats from/to Marseille. Air France and KLM's share of aircraft movements at peak-times at Marseille is 48.9%.