Alexandre de Juniac largely renewed at the head of Air France-KLM – Challenges.fr

Paris (AFP) – The CEO Air France-KLM Alexandre Juniac was widely re-elected at the general meeting of the group, with the mandate to continue the group’s recovery efforts Perform with its new plan in 2020.

Mr. Juniac was reelected for the second term of four years with 94.21% of votes cast. “In renewing my mandate, Air France-KLM shareholders expressed their full support before the project we developed for months, played by strategically Perform 2020,” Mr. de Juniac said.

“With this plan, Air France-KLM is building its future with all of its personnel: while pursuing its profound transformation, it invests in its products, brands and growth sectors ” a- he added.

The Franco-Dutch company, which has to manage a heavy debt encumbering its development capacities, faces at the same time intense competition in the long-haul and Gulf companies on medium-haul routes in Europe for low-cost airlines.

Air France-KLM is facing a “context tormented because of extremely strong competition,” said Mr. Juniac during the General Assembly. It therefore bound to “seize the opportunities that present with growth of air transport by 5.9% in 2014″ to bounce back.

However, he stressed, this growth “moves to emerging countries’ long-haul and “traditional markets to more leisure markets operated by low-cost airlines” on the medium-haul in Europe.

Air France-KLM will therefore ” to seek growth there or it is “through partnerships to Asia and Latin America and the continued move upmarket over the long haul, and the development of its subsidiary Transavia on the medium-haul that is “the right tool to address this leisure market where growth has shifted in Europe”

-. Down Debt –

According to Mr. Juniac, the growth of low-cost was 5.7% in 2014, against 2.7% for traditional companies.

The company will also improve its competitiveness through cost reductions, repeated M. Juniac.

Part of the way was made with the Transform 2015 plan, which must find its extension by a second component, Perform 2020 under negotiation with employees. The group managed to reduce costs by 8% between 2011 and 2015.

But it was sealed last year by a strike by Air France pilots which cost 430 million euros, “one of the longest strikes and most expensive in the history of the company,” according to Alexandre Juniac.

At the end of March, Air France-KLM debt was 4, 68 billion euros, against 6.5 billion in 2011, a level close to its target of 4.5 billion euros.

Another area of ​​development, the group will rely on growth Business maintenance, lucrative, with growth of 28% last year backlog and an operating margin of 5%, which is the world number two in the sector.

Finally Alexander Juniac said his group would continue to transport monkeys destined for research laboratories in response to a question from an activist Peta association.

“We believe, and we wonder regularly the highest authorities of medical research, the experimentation done on primates with similar genetic heritage of the human species is essential to the advancement of research, “he has declared.

Thirty protesters association had gathered near the AG at the Carousel du Louvre to denounce the shipment of monkeys in experiments. According to the association of animal rights, the French company is one of the last to make the transport of these animals to research laboratories.