The salary conflict at Air France has known a new development: 71% of its pilots have voted to go on a strike that could last up to 6 days, according to the Syndicat National des Pilotes de Ligne (SNPL), the main pilot union at Air France.

Eleven unions from every profession at Air France have called for a new day of strike on March, 23 2018. The former day of strike, on February 22, 2018, had costed the company 26 million of euros.

Air France employees are asking for general raise of 6% in their salary justified by a decrease of purchasing power since the last raise in 2011. A first offer of adjusting salaries for some employees had been made earlier in the week to try to defuse the strike. It was rejected by the unions, who said a case-by-case raise was “impossible and absurd”.

The group Air France-KLM has known a raise of 42% in its operating profit in 2017. Of the 1.488 billion euros profit, 588 million came from the French part.

In the meantime, two former employees of Air France are currently in the French court for ripping the shirt of the Director of the long-haul activity of the company Pierre Plissonnier and the former Human Resources Director Xavier Broseta in 2015. At the time, Air France had announced the suppression of 2.900 jobs. That restructuration plan had then been scrapped.