Demonstration at Orly airport to protest against the abandonment of Air France routes

A few weeks after Air France announced the end of its activities at Orly, a rally was held this Friday at the southern Paris airport to protest against this decision, noted an AFP journalist. In 2026, the French airline will abandon all its routes there, with the exception of Corsica, to consolidate its operations at Roissy, due to the drop in attendance. At the call of the CGT, just under a hundred people gathered from 10 a.m. in front of Orly terminal 3, without blocking access to travelers. The action is scheduled until 1 p.m.

“We would like Air France management to reverse its decision,” Valérie Raphel, CGT delegate, told AFP. “We are leaving our passengers to competition while a metro arrives in 2024. We are leaving the southern Ile-de-France employment area abandoned.” “It’s unfortunate to leave Orly after 70 years as a pavilion,” said Radouane, who has worked on the platform as a mechanic for 30 years. “I bought my house in the area, I set up my life there. We have colleagues who live more than 70 kilometers from Roissy, this will create family problems,” assures the father. “Passengers going to the Maghreb and the Antilles are attached to Orly and Air France.”

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Six lines from Orly will be eliminated, three to overseas (Pointe-à-Pitre, Fort-de-France and Saint-Denis de La Réunion) and three others in mainland France (Toulouse, Marseille and Nice). The “low-cost” of the French airline group, Transavia, will take over to the latter three, from the same airport. “Between 2019 and 2023, the drop in traffic on domestic routes departing from Orly is -40%, and even -60% for daytime round trips,” Air France revealed, attributing this disaffection to “the "combined effect of sobriety recommendations and CSR (social and environmental responsibility, editor's note) policies of companies".

“Air France is an economic engine at Orly. One Air France job is four subcontracting jobs,” explains Ali Eddaidj, Air France Industry delegate. He assures that “of the 1,000 jobs to be reclassified, not all will have their place in Roissy”. The CGT also denounces “the freezing of jobs” at Air France which has lost “25,000 employees in 13 years”. Negotiation meetings are underway, between management and union organizations, to discuss the terms of an agreement on a method to implement this reorganization choice.