One day offer, Air France-KLM-Delta offers "almost free" fares for children this Christmas

by Devesh Agarwal

Air France-KLM and their joint venture partner Delta Air Lines have a one-day “Santa Surprise" offer for all children travelling to Europe, with their family on the three airlines.

All children up to the age of 11 years and 11 months will have to pay only 1% of the adult fare. This “Santa Offer” is valid for booking and ticketing only on 24th December 2013 for outbound travel on or before March 31, 2014. This offer is only valid for India.

To avail the offer, call the Air France - KLM sales and service center or contact your travel agent.

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Celebrate Gandhi Jayanti with Air France - KLM

By BA Staff

To mark the birth anniversary for the father of India, Air France KLM, a member of the Sky Team alliance announced a special online contest for all their Air France and KLM follower base in India.

KLM India team will quiz their fans each day on location for two photographs of iconic Mahatma Gandhi statues around the world. The KLM India Twitter (www.twitter.com/KLMIndia) followers will need to identify both the photographs and tweet their answer with hashtag #Tribute2Gandhi.

While Air France India team will invite fans to share photos of Gandhiji’s memorabilia in their cities with interesting captions on Twitter (www.twitter.com/airfranceIN) channel with hashtag #GandhiInMyCity every day till the October 2, 2013.

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Air France - KLM provides update on Transform 2015 progress

by BA Staff

European airline group Air France - KLM has provided an update on its Transform 2015 plan, which aims to transform the airline and restore profitability by 2015 by slashing unit costs excluding fuel by 10% and shedding €2 billion worth of debt. The following details were provided by Air France - KLM in a release:

• Tranform 2015 measures drove an improvement of €100 million in first half operating results
• Air France has judged that it has 2,800 "excess staff" who will be progressively eliminated over the course of 2013-14 via voluntary departure plans
• Wage moderation will continue in 2014
• Point to point operations at Paris Orly will be handed over to low cost carrier (LCC) wing Transavia France
• Five new aircraft will be based at Orly by Transavia France from 2014 onwards, and Air France's full service point-to-point network will be adjusted downwards accordingly
• Seasonal adjustment of schedules and capacity will be used more heavily
• More outsourcing will occur at French stations and customer service processes will be reorganized
• Air France will retire all of its dedicated Boeing 747 freighters by 2015, leaving two Boeing 777Fs as the only dedicated cargo aircraft in its fleet
• Cargo operations at Paris Orly will be outsourced
• Growth in the route network will be focused on long haul only
• Fleet wise, the seven 747-400s will leave the fleet by 2015, to be replaced by four Boeing 777-300ERs and 3 Airbus A380-800s, though the final two A380s have been deferred to 2016 or beyond. The first 787s will arrive at KLM in 2017, followed by Air France's first A350s in 2018
• A new "Future hub" plan is being set up at Paris Charles de Gaulle, which will see the carrier invest in new technology and facilities so as to give passengers flying through Charles de Gaulle into a smoother connecting experience

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Air France launches A380 flights to Shanghai

by BA Staff

European SkyTeam member Air France has launched Airbus A380 flights to Shanghai's Pudong International Airport today (2nd September 2013), beating Star Alliance rival Lufthansa as the first European carrier to offer A380 services from Shanghai by 24 days. The flight is currently (as of 8:00 am Bangalore time) in the air as the following screen cap from Flight Aware shows.

Air France plans to operate its A380s, configured with 516 seats in a 4-class configuration (9F / 80J / 38Y+ / 389Y), on three of its fourteen flights per week to Shanghai. Flight schedules for the two daily flights are as follow:

AF 116: Leaves Paris-Charles de Gaulle at 23:20, arrives in Shanghai-Pudong at 16:20 the following day AF 111: Leaves Shanghai-Pudong at 23:20, arrives in Paris-Charles de Gaulle at 5:35 the following day

Flight 116, the red-eye, will have A380 services on three of seven days each week.

Frédéric Gagey, Chairman and CEO of Air France, had this to say about the launch:

The arrival of our superjumbo in Shanghai illustrates Air France’s intention to continue its expansion in China, a strategic and fast-growing region. With the A380, our customers can enjoy an optimum travel experience in all cabin classes, as well as services specially adapted to the Chinese culture

Air France-KLM group has the largest European presence in China amongst European carriers, with 93 flights per week from its two European hubs at Paris and Amsterdam to nine Greater Chinese destinations: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong,Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Xiamen and Taipei.

Shanghai becomes the sixth A380 destination for Air France, after New York JFK, Washington Dulles, and Los Angeles in the US, Johannesburg in Africa, and Tokyo Narita in Asia. Air France operates a fleet of 8 Airbus A380-800s as part of its passenger fleet of 245 aircraft, used to serve 199 destinations around the globe. 

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Report: Jet Airways scissors hub moving to Amsterdam

Earlier this week in a press conference at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Etihad CEO broke the news that Indian full service carrier Jet Airways will be transferring its European scissors hub from Brussels to Amsterdam. Thanks to the recently created Jetihad partnership (Etihad owns 24% of Jet Airways), Etihad exerts significant control over Jet’s international strategy.

Jet Airways currently operates daily flights from Mumbai and Delhi to Brussels, which then continue onwards to Newark and Toronto. Etihad recently signed a cooperation agreement with KLM that covers several destinations under a joint venture agreement. While Etihad (and by extension Jetihad) have no plans to join SkyTeam, they are apparently interested in working more closely with Air France-KLM and Delta. Etihad already places its code on 12 KLM destinations out of Amsterdam and on 15th May launched daily services between Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam using Airbus A330-200 equipment.

No timeline has been set for the transfer and it remains to be seen whether the shift of Jet’s North American services to Amsterdam is an intermediate step, or the final plan for these flights. Most industry observers had predicted that Jet Airways’ long haul fleet would be re-deployed for use on westbound international services through Abu Dhabi; indeed part of the value proposition for the Jetihad deal was the ability to utilize Jet Airways’ wide-body fleet to augment Etihad’s hub in Abu Dhabi via a scissors hub.

Still, Amsterdam makes sense as an intermediate transfer point. Mumbai does have more O&D demand to Brussels, but KLM’s Amsterdam hub is much stronger than the comparable operation for Brussels Airlines in Brussels. So Jet Airways will get some additional feed in Amsterdam. And if they were to launch a joint venture for US-Europe-India with Air France-KLM and Delta, it could be potentially lucrative.

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Videos: Behind the scenes of an A380 departure and an engine inspection

Our two videos today come courtesy Air France.

Have you ever wondered what happens around your plane while you are waiting for your flight to board and depart? In first video, Air France reveals an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the frenetic activity performed by hundreds of people prior to the departure of an A380. Next go behind the scene at Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance (AFI KLM E&M) and see the inspection and maintenance of a GE90 engine, the largest civil aircraft engine in the world, from its arrival at the Air France hangar to the test phase at the new Air France engine test cell.





Below is a detailed graphic showing the engine inspection and maintenance process.

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