{"id":177199,"date":"2018-08-17T01:51:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T05:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=177199"},"modified":"2018-08-17T01:51:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T05:51:53","slug":"air-canada-exec-ben-smith-face-labour-headwinds-new-ceo-air-france-klm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/17\/air-canada-exec-ben-smith-face-labour-headwinds-new-ceo-air-france-klm\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada exec Ben Smith to face labour headwinds as new CEO at Air France KLM"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Smith will replace former Air France CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac, who quit more than three months ago when staff turned down his offer of a pay deal aimed at halting a wave of strikes. (Photo<\/a>: Air France\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL \u2014 Air\u00a0Canada’s chief operating officer Ben Smith has been named the new CEO of Air France-KLM.<\/p>\n

The longtime No. 2 at Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0will be the first non-French national to helm the Franco-Dutch carrier.<\/p>\n

Smith will replace former Air France CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac, who quit more than three months ago when staff turned down his offer of a pay deal aimed at halting a wave of strikes.<\/p>\n

Smith, who has shepherded Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0through multiple labour talks with pilots, flight attendants and machinists, will come on board amidst growing competition and labour turbulence overseas.<\/p>\n

“I am well aware of the competitive challenges the Air France-KLM Group is currently facing and I am convinced that the airlines’ teams have all the strengths to succeed in the global airline market,” Smith said in a release.<\/p>\n

Walter Spracklin, an analyst with RBC Dominion Securities Inc., said Smith’s departure was a setback for Air\u00a0Canada, “but not irreparable.”<\/p>\n

“We had considered Mr. Smith to be the airline’s next CEO and therefore his departure leaves a gap in terms of succession,” Spracklin said.<\/p>\n

Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0shares remained relatively stable this week, closing at $23.87 Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Air France board of directors approved Smith’s hiring at a board meeting Thursday.<\/p>\n

He will leave Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0on Aug. 31 and take up his duties as CEO on Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Smith joined Air\u00a0Canada’s executive committee in 2007, just before rising fuel prices and the financial crisis saw the airline cut 2,000 jobs and struggle through a tepid growth.<\/p>\n

Labour strife with flight attendants and pilots in 2011 and 2012, respectively, preceded a period of relative calm, with 10-year collective agreements signed between the company and both groups in the last four years.<\/p>\n

“He was a very integral part of ensuring labour peace,” said Robert Kokonis, president of Toronto-based consulting firm AirTrav Inc.<\/p>\n

Recent tweaks to a collective agreement with pilots at Air\u00a0Canada’s low-cost Rouge unit allowed the carrier to use more narrow-body planes for the subsidiary, a “weapon” Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0can now use to compete against ultra-low-fare upstarts such as WestJet Airlines Ltd.’s Swoop and Edmonton-based Flair Airlines, Kokonis said.<\/p>\n

The narrow-body aircraft operate at a lower cost and could replace smaller regional aircraft operated by airline partners like Jazz on some routes.<\/p>\n

Challenges await Smith abroad, where full-service, partially subsidized Gulf carriers and low-cost European airlines threaten to squeeze flag carriers, Kokonis said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile labour turmoil on the European tarmac continues. Pilots at Air France, Brussels Airlines and Ryanair have all staged work stoppages in recent months.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had strikes in\u00a0Canada, but we’ve never had the same level of militancy in any of our airline union ranks, arguably, compared to the circus in France,” Kokonis said, referring to a 13-day walkout by Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0pilots in 1998.<\/p>\n

Anne-Marie Couderc, non-executive chair of Air France-KLM highlighted Smith’s history as a deal maker.<\/p>\n

“As a man who prefers dialogue, he developed and implemented the historical long-term win-win agreements with the airline’s social partners for the benefit of Air\u00a0Canada’s teams, the airline and all other stakeholders,” Couderc said in a release.<\/p>\n

The enthusiasm was not universal.<\/p>\n

“The board of Air France-KLM always makes the worst decisions,” said Philippe Evain, head of Air France’s main pilot union, in a tweet earlier this week. “Is it going to hand over the keys to Air France to Americans?”<\/p>\n

A union representing Air France ground staff questioned Smith’s potential pay package, which the French newspaper “Liberation” reported will hit 3.3 million euros a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 Air\u00a0Canada’s chief operating officer Ben Smith has been named the new CEO of Air France-KLM. The longtime No. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":177203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-christopher-reynolds","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}