Air France pilot strike costs airline 500 million euros

The recent pilots’ strike at Air France was the longest in the airline's history (AFP) (AFP)

Air France has warned last month’s two-week pilots’ strike cost it 500 million euros (£393 million), and African low-cost flier fastjet said its Tanzanian operations had been disrupted by an unusually high number of bird strikes.

The French carrier said it had lost 350 million euros from lower takings on its own flights and buying customers tickets on rival airlines.

The rest of the shortfall was because prospective customers were put off booking.

The 500 million euros shortfall is more than a fifth of Air France’s recently downgraded forecast of annual earnings of between 2.2 billion euros and 2.3 billion euros.

For fastjet, the airline backed by easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, four bird strikes — involving ibises and eagles — in a fortnight at Tanzania’s Mwanza airport meant flights were cancelled and delayed.

Two birds hit the nose cone of fastjet’s plane and two ended up in the jet fan blades. Fastjet’s livery is an African Grey parrot.

Fastjet shares, which are down 80 per cent this year, dipped 2 per cent; Air France-KLM were down just more than 4 per cent.