Transavia part 2: still constrained by unions and forced into high degree of overlap with Air France

Air France's recent draft agreement with pilot unions over the future growth of its Transavia France LCC operation puts the Air France-KLM Group in a better place than it was before the deal was struck. This is particularly so in view of the damaging strike that preceded the accord.

However, the deal comes with some major compromises. Instead of adding new Transavia routes across Europe via the now abandoned Transavia Europe, Air France will put all its LCC growth into Transavia France. In our first in this series of two reports analysing Transavia, we concluded that the abandonment of its plans to establish a pan-European LCC vehicle was a high strategic price to pay.

In this second report, we highlight the extent to which Transavia France will still face significant constraints as a result of management concessions to unions. We also question the merit of the high degree of overlap between Transavia France's network and that of Air France.