AOM-Air Liberté : the d-day

The two French companies and Air Littoral, which are a part of the air pole SAirGroup, will know their fate this afternoon during the general assembly of the Swiss holding company.

Today, Wednesday April 25th, is the d-day for the 7.400 French employees of AOM, Air Liberté and Air Littoral. The annual general assembly of their parent company, SAirGroup, will start this afternoon, 3.00 pm, in a plane shed of the Zurich-Kloten airport. Because of threats of collapse of this Swiss holding company, a record attendance of more than 10.000 shareholders is expected. Among the questions that will be tackled, one is crucial for the future of what was the second French air pole : Mario Corti, the new CEO, will present the strategy that will be followed for French subsidiaries in the red, that is to say AOM, Air Liberté and Air Littoral.2.4 million passengers on NiceAir Littoral already knows its future : one month ago, SAirGroup has decided to cut investments. Then the company had two months of treasury left to keep on functioning (only one month left today) and they have now to look for another rescuer. Besides, yesterday Tuesday, the company's staff has made a demonstration on the Nice international airport, by blocking landing strips for two hours between 2.00 and 4.00 pm.As for AOM and Air Liberté, the fate should be decided before the end of the night (the general assembly should last late at night as the number of questions to debate is important). According to the latest news, SAirGroup would accept to inject 500 million francs in its two French subsidiaries, which would represent two supplementary months of treasury. If, within these two months, a rescuer shows himself, SAirGroup would accept to invest 1.6 billion francs, while asking the French shareholder of these two companies (Taitbout Antibes BV, an holding company which belongs to Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the president of the Medef) to contribute to the operation.As we get closer to the meeting date and to an end which risks to be catastrophic as far as social matters are concerned, the employees of the three companies show their rage because of the huge mess done by the Swiss group. For the Nice airport, it is a grave moment. A long run strategy and more than one fourth of the passenger traffic will be decided today : in 2000, Air Littoral, the hub in Nice, accounted for 1.2 passengers, while the AOM and Air Liberté shuttle to Orly, which maintains a competition on an essential air line, represents 1.2 million passengers. That is to say 2.4 million passengers (more than 25% over the 9.4 million passengers registered in 2000 on the airport), a figure which should not be reach any more in case of liquidation of the three companies.