From summer 2026, Transavia will replace Air France on routes from Paris/Orly to Marseille, Nice and Toulouse. A logical succession in view of market developments.
Work sharing between Air France and Transavia
The sharing of work between Air France and its subsidiary Transavia has just reached a new stage and this time which concerns the three major domestic routes which connect Paris/Orly airport to Nice, Marseille and Toulouse. From the summer of 2026, Transavia will succeed or take over from Air France on these three main lines which were at one time nicknamed the “diagonals”. An exception: the lines which connect Corsica as part of the public service delegation. At the same time, Air France will increase the frequencies of current connections between Paris/Charles de Gaulle and Nice, Marseille and Toulouse, giving full play to the hub effect both on international routes and on lines serving the regions and territories of Overseas (Pointe-à-Pitre, Fort-de-France and Saint-Denis de La Réunion).
An internal market which evolved between 2019 and 2023
This approach is the consequence of the evolution of the internal market. “The development of videoconferencing, the reduction in professional travel on the domestic network and the shift to the train (under the combined effect of sobriety recommendations and companies’ CSR policies) are leading to a structural fall in demand on the domestic network point-to-point service of Air France. Between 2019 and 2023, traffic on domestic routes departing from Orly fell by 40%, and even by 60% for daytime round trips”, underlines Air France which sees advantages of sharing work with Transavia: “optimization of the use of the resources of each company, greater clarity of the offer for customers, and improvement of Air France’s competitiveness”.
Air France staff to convince
It now remains to convince the Air France staff concerned and negotiate with the representative union organizations “the measures to best support all employees affected by this development”. “With regard to employees based in the provinces, and taking into account the redeployment of part of the frequencies currently provided from Paris-Orly to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, the impact of this development on employment on stopovers in Toulouse, Marseille and Nice would be limited, and managed solely on the basis of mobility or voluntary departures. The bases of cabin crew on these stopovers would be maintained”, estimates Air France which indicates that for “employees based at Paris-Orly , the strong resource needs at Paris-Charles de Gaulle identified by 2026 would make it possible to guarantee everyone equivalent employment on the Roissy site. All mobility solutions on the Paris-Orly platform would be sought beforehand.
