Air France-KLM urges CDG, supply chain issues improvements

Air France-KLM has urged Paris Aéroport (ADP), which runs Paris CDG, to improve the country's main hub saying the shortage of jetways and contact gates has created a daily struggle for aircraft parking and has also driven up operating costs.

First reported by Reuters, the chief executive officer of the Franco-Dutch airline group, Ben Smith, said Air France (AF, Paris CDG) and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL, Amsterdam Schiphol) have to negotiate with ADP every morning to find parking bays for their aircraft and that while there are no regrets about the 2021-cancelled Terminal 4, Charles de Gaulle needs “improving [on] on what’s already there. It’s really important for us.”

Besides the lack of jetways, Smith also believes the location of the maintenance hangars, far away from the airport terminals, is a bottleneck that costs the airline hours in extra towing time.

The ch-aviation schedules module shows Air France operates 53.12% of Charles de Gaulle’s weekly scheduled flights, while sister carrier KLM only operates 0.38%.

Separately, Ben Smith also urged the aerospace industry to address the ongoing supply chain bottlenecks, which are creating lengthy delays, and the delivery of products with malfunctioning and missing parts.

“We’ve got aircraft that are missing parts, cabins that are missing parts, engines - missing parts [...]. So either these aircraft have to be grounded, or we have to spend more money on overhauling or redoing the parts ourselves,” Smith said, as reported by Bloomberg.

Air France-KLM has opted to double the number of backup aircraft available over the summer compared to last year to address these issues. This is partly done via wet-lease agreements; Air France has so far secured ten aircraft from third-party sources such as Amelia, ASL Airlines France, euroAtlantic Airways, and Air Belgium. KLM also wet-leases in capacity from Eastern Airways, German Airways, and Privilege Style, the ch-aviation fleets module shows. Low-cost carriers Transavia France and Transavia Airlines wet-lease from DAT, ETF Airways, Avion Express, and GetJet Airlines.