De Juniac to leave Air France-KLM
Air France-KLM shares slumped the most in more than a year in Paris trading after the surprise departure of Chief Executive Officer Alexandre de Juniac.
|||Toulouse - Air France-KLM Group shares slumped the most in more than a year in Paris trading after the surprise departure of Chief Executive Officer Alexandre de Juniac, leaving Europe’s largest airline without a leader as it tries to push through cost cuts against opposition from workers.
The shares fell 6.4 percent to 7.65 euros at 9.35am in Paris after dropping as much as 8.6 percent, the biggest intraday decline since December 19, 2014. Before Wednesday, the stock had risen 16 percent this year.
De Juniac, 53, is quitting after just three years in the job for the more sedate surroundings of the International Air Transport Association lobby group, which he will run after leaving Air France-KLM by August 1, the carrier said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Mr de Juniac and his team have been successful in de-levering the group, putting it on a clearly better fundamental footing,” Johannes Braun, an analyst at Commerzbank AG, wrote in a report. Yet he’s “had so far limited success restructuring the legacy cost structures, especially at Air France, which remains in dispute with unions”.
The CEO sought to build his strategy around shifting short-haul Air France flights that don’t connect with lucrative long-haul trips to lower-cost units Transavia and Hop! in order to compete with discount specialists Ryanair Holdings Plc and EasyJet Plc. Union opposition has left that plan in tatters.
Updates second paragraph to add year-to-date stock return. An earlier version of this story was corrected to show the stock's drop is biggest since December 2014.
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