Sky Team Airports

[LondonAkis]

Reuters
Air France-KLM says airports key to future success
Sunday May 9, 2:00 pm ET


PARIS, May 9 (Reuters) - Access to Paris and Amsterdam airports will be key to the success of last week's marriage between Air France and Dutch airline KLM, Air France-KLM (Paris:AIRF.PA - News) Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta has said.

Spinetta said in an interview with Le Figaro daily, released on Sunday ahead of publication, that accepting new members including KLM into the Skyteam alliance would be important for the future of the airline grouping.

"I am certain that Europe is going to suffer very soon from a lack of quality airport structures," Spinetta said, when asked why he was confident the newly merged Air France-KLM airline would be a success.

"We will therefore be very fortunate in being able to match the potential of Roissy and Schipol (airports) with the competence of our two great companies," he said, adding that the newly unified airline would carry more weight and be better able to assure jobs.

He accepted that Skyteam, already the world's third biggest airline alliance, would become more difficult to manage once KLM, Continental and Northwest (NasdaqNM:NWAC - News) come on board, as he expects, in September 2004.

"The functioning (of the alliance) does risk becoming more complicated," he said. "We have to find a way of managing it; everything remains to be invented. It is a very important issue for the future."

Asked whether Skyteam, which already includes Delta (NYSEAL - News), Aeromexico and Korean Air among other airlines, would one day welcome a low-cost operator, Spinetta said the group already had one in the form of KLM affiliate, Basicair.

Air France's takeover of KLM to create the world's top airline by revenues was completed last week.

 

[LondonAkis]

Associated Press
Paris airport collapse dims Air France vision
Monday May 24, 12:41 pm ET
By Laurence Frost, AP Business Writer


PARIS (AP) -- The partial collapse of a new terminal at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport has dented plans to give Air France the leading aviation hub in Europe, analysts said Monday.
The deadly collapse, which killed four people Sunday, deals a blow to the national carrier just three weeks after it merged with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to create the world's biggest airline group by sales.


The euro750 million (US$900 million) Terminal 2E, which now stands empty less than a year after it opened, was at the center of Air France's long-term strategy to win over more customers from rivals like British Airways and Lufthansa, whose London and Frankfurt hubs are operating at or close to capacity.

"It was a clear advantage that they had, which has been at least temporarily reduced," said Andrew Lobbenberg, a London-based aviation analyst with ABN Amro.

Although only 60 of Air France's 1,700 daily flights were using the terminal, it was to have provided the futuristic backdrop for the planned expansion of the airline, which spent euro50 million (US$60 million) on its own equipment and furnishings for the building.

That growth is expected to come in part from the enlargement of the Skyteam alliance led by Air France and U.S. partner Delta Air Lines -- to be joined by KLM and the Dutch carrier's own U.S. partners Continental and Northwest.

Designed to handle 10 million passengers, Terminal 2E was to be a new European center of operations for Air France and its partners, offering faster and cheaper integrated ground services like baggage handling as well as swifter connections.

Its closure for repairs or possible demolition means passengers can expect a "lower quality of service," Lobbenberg said, with longer baggage delays and buses between connecting flights.

Air France spokesman Jean-Claude Couturier conceded that "passenger transport will be less easy" while the terminal remains closed.

"Air France's strategy was to bring together all of its operations with its partners at Terminal 2E. That's now delayed," Couturier said.

Rene Brun, director of Charles de Gaulle airport, told reporters it was too early to say when the terminal might be reopened or whether it would have to be demolished altogether.

Part of the tube-shaped building's roof crashed through an elevated waiting area and onto several parked cars below, pulling down outer walls. Four people were killed and three more injured.

State-owned Aeroports de Paris, which runs the airport, has said there will be no cancelations even in the summer season, since other terminals have more than enough capacity to cope with peak traffic.

Air France shares dropped 2.8 percent when the Euronext stock exchange opened Monday but later recovered most of their loss, closing 0.6 percent lower at euro12.73 (US$15.25) in Paris.