The directors of four French companies serving overseas territories (Air Austral, Air Caraibes, Corsair et French Bee) and ASL Airlines France, which serves Algeria, wrote on March 29 to the State Participation Agency to complain about the “strategy of massive growth at all costs of the company Air France”. According to Les Nouvelles de Mayotte, a note attached to this letter deplores the implementation for the 2021 summer season “of a totally oversized provisional offer and very aggressive pricing actions”. “The question therefore arises as to whether the very high proportion of public funds granted to the Air France Group does not lead to a distortion of competition, the first victims of which will be other French companies serving the same destinations”, underlines this note. Les Nouvelles de Mayotte also revealed in April that Air France was preparing to market a Paris-Mayotte route via its Nairobi stopover, or Kenyan. The information was not confirmed by the company at the time these lines were written and no details were available regarding the prices of this line. According to the Mahorais daily online, Air France would start these operations on July 5, at least for the two months of the high season of the southern winter. If the news is a little more worrying Air Austral, which should face unexpected competition on the Mayotte-Paris link, it is favorably received by the Association of Air Transport Users of Mayotte, hoping that this commercial confrontation will be synonymous with “necessarily very competitive prices”.
