Airport: Air Littoral saves its hub in Nice

Despite the problems faced by SAirGroup, the main shareholder, the summer programme of the 'compagnie des gens du Sud' (company of Southern people) will only cancel two destinations (Vienna et Rennes). Most of the flights are kept.

Air Littoral will globally keep its activity on the hub of Nice for its summer programme which will start on March 25th. That is what the president of AOM, Air Liberté and Air Littoral's directory, Marc Rochet announced on Thursday March 15th in Montpellier, in front of the ordinary company committee of the company of people from the South. Air Littoral's summer programme was slightly modified: flights from Nice to Vienna are cancelled (a daily trip frequency), as for the flights between Nice and Rennes, daily too. On the other hand, the flights between Toulouse and Nice will decrease from 6 to 4 flights, decrease which is though compensated by the use of a bigger vehicle (a Fokker 70 of 79 seats compared to a CRJ of 50 seats before).Nevertheless, Nice saves most of the flights, whereas Air Littoral wants to give the priority to the improvement of economic profitability. The summer flight to Corsica from Nice to Figari from July 14th to September 9th is reinforced by the use of a Fokker 100 with a capacity of 130 seats. Air Littoral's own network will be of 17 direct lines in Nice this summer, (with 8 additional flights to Montpellier and 3 to Marseille, which won't operate the flights to Venice and Zurich). The other change consists in the return to the commercial organization before the attempt of merger between AOM, Air Liberté and Air Littoral. Air Littoral's sales representatives staff who were gathered within the AMCF (Airline Marketing Company France) will be reinstated in the company in a new sales department in the weeks to come (about 25 people will then come back to Nice).However, nothing is sure for Air Littoral, as for the two other companies (AOM and Air Liberté), which should have been the second French air group. SAirGroup, which is currently facing important problems, has just appointed a new president to replace Eric Honegger: Mari Corti, who is the financial director of Nestlé agro business group at the moment. Marc Rochet asserted that the setting of the summer programme won't lead to lay-offs and it will be established according to the next performances of the company and according to the decisions of shareholders. However, employees are still very worried. They are now waiting for April 2nd, when SAirGroup and its new CEO have to announce the new air strategy.