![\"Frank](\"http:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-content\/uploads\/070130-airfrance-legre.gif\" "\\"Frank")
For many years France has had close cultural and business ties with China. As the first Western airline to fly to Mainland China, in 1966, Air France has long formed a bridge between the two nations. Frenchman Frank Legr\u00e9 is the general Manager of Air France and KLM in Greater China.<\/p>\n
A twenty year veteran with Air France, Legr\u00e9's career has spanned both the Old World and the New (the Caribbean, Switzerland, South America and now China) as well as headquarters and regional postings at home in France.<\/p>\n
What is the biggest challenge that Air France faces in China?<\/strong> How much of an impact has rising fuel prices had on your China routes?<\/strong> How is Air France working with its Chinese airline partners?<\/strong> With China Eastern we currently cooperate on the Shanghai-Paris route and are willing to expand our cooperation with them in other fields.<\/p>\n What is the thing you are most proud of during your tenure of working with Air France in China? <\/strong> How do you expect inbound and outbound traveler trends to change over the next five years for Air France in China? <\/strong> How is your company differentiating itself from competitors who also fly to Europe from China?<\/strong> What advice would you share with other air companies hoping to expand their businesses to China? <\/strong> As regards AF we were the first Western airline to fly to the PRC, in September 1966 — more than forty years ago. Now we fly to four cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guanzhou and Hong Kong) and look forward to a fruitful partnership with Chinese Airlines.<\/p>\n What sort of impact will the merger with KLM have with Air France's long-term business in Asia? <\/strong> So we are confident that the AF and KLM merger in China will result in better and faster connections to Europe, Africa, and Latin America, to the benefit of our Chinese customers. At the same time it will help us increase our economic efficiency in a very competitive industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For many years France has had close cultural and business ties with China. As the first Western airline to fly to Mainland China, in 1966, Air France has long formed a bridge between the two nations. Frenchman Frank Legr\u00e9 is the general Manager of Air France and KLM in Greater China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12723],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTo attract more Chinese customers on board our China flights! French and European markets have currently the biggest share of passengers on our China Routes. Now we would like to strike a better balance by increasing the share of Chinese passengers on our flights. Strong development of Chinese business in Europe, Africa and Latin America as well as the surge of Chinese tourists visiting France will help us fulfill this expectation.<\/p>\n
\nAs on all long-haul routes served by AF, cost of fuel has taken its toll on our profit margin. But AF has been running a very efficient fuel hedging policy that has helped us a lot in the past years.<\/p>\n
\nWe enjoy a strong partnership with China Southern (CZ):they are set to enter our worldwide SkyTeam Alliance by the end of 2007. We code-share with them on the Guanzhou Paris route and together we aim at offering a daily flight on this route. We also have Frequent Flyer agreements in place with CZ allowing Flying Blue members to accrue mileage when they fly on CZ and to claim free reward tickets on CZ.<\/p>\n
\nIt is a difficult question when one has been in China for less than 2 years! In fact I believe in collective achievement, especially in China. And I must say I am very happy with the performance of our Sales, Support and Operations teams in the past months, at a time when AF increased dramatically its flight operations to China, having gone to twice daily on the Paris-Beijing and Paris Shanghai routes.<\/p>\n
\nWe expect a strong increase of traffic on the routes between Europe and China, about 15% a year, with more and more traffic originating in China. This country is on the verge of becoming a world economic giant and that can only benefit our airline industry<\/p>\n
\nAir France proudly claims its French origin: we would like our on board service to reflect Parisian elegance and French gastronomy! When you board an AF plane you already feel in France, with cabin crew welcoming you in \u201chaute couture\u201d uniforms designed by Christan Lacroix. This French touch is highly appreciated by most of our Chinese customers. Nevertheless, Air France being a global player, all passengers should feel at ease on board our planes. This is why we are also working hard in adapting our service to Chinese customers expectations: since 1997 we have had Chinese interpreters on board, we offer Chinese newspapers and show Chinese movies and TV news. Chinese and French people share a love of good food: we are now introducing a choice of French and Chinese meal trays in Economy Class. Chinese menus have been carefully selected by chefs of the internationally renowned South Beauty Restaurants.<\/p>\n
\nChina is a difficult market where good personal relationships with people are essential. In order to be successful here you have to enter this market with a strong commitment and a clear strategy. The stop and go policy simply does not work here.<\/p>\n
\nThe AF and KLM merger in Asia gives us a strong leadership among European carriers. Let's take the example of China, together with KLM we will offer 76 weekly passenger flights to Greater China next Summer: more than any other European airline. In addition, our strategy is to grow together on the main gateways (BJS, SHA, HKG) but to operate only one brand to emerging destinations like Guanzhou and Chengdu. It's worth underlining that both AF and KLM were the first European carriers to start flying to these cities, that are now linked three times a week to Paris and Amsterdam.<\/p>\n