L'Air Misérable

- Matthew Campbell And Ania Nussbaum

Air France-KLM’s offices in central Paris might reside in the finest piece of airline-controlled real estate in the world. They’re housed in an elegant limestone pile on the riverfront Esplanade des Invalides, all sharp cornices and generous arched windows. Immediate neighbors include France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Palais Bourbon, which hosts the National Assembly. The airline moved most of its operations next to Charles de Gaulle Airport long before its 2004 merger with its Dutch counterpart KLM, but it has hung on to the Invalides pavilion for special events—such as the gathering Air France-KLM’s then-chief executive officer, Jean-Marc Janaillac, called for one Friday evening in May.

A couple of weeks earlier, he’d tried to resolve a stalemate over pay with Air France unions by proposing an employee referendum. To focus minds on the plebiscite, Janaillac, a former public-transit executive who’d become CEO in 2016, made a confident, even reckless, promise: If his plan, which provided for a modest raise while preserving enough cash to buy new planes, failed to win majority support from the rank and file, he would resign. The morning before his planned appearance, Le Parisien reported that he was headed for a comfortable victory.