French state postal operator La Poste is poised to sell its air cargo, mail and passenger chartersubsidiary Europe Airpost within a matter of months, according to the country’s pilots’ union.
SNPL, the national union of airline pilots, announced yesterday it had been informed at aworks council that a foreign investor, from outside Europe, was about to buy the company, formerlyAéropostale.
Europe Airpost, based at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris, ferries night mail,freight and charter passengers to and from 16 main airports in France.
The carrier, 100% owned by Groupe La Poste, runs a fleet of 25 planes, 12 of them B737-300Quick Change cargo/passenger convertibles, and has 400 staff. In 2006, its revenues were EUR 240million and operating profit EUR 15 million, according to the Les Echos newspaper.
La Poste sources were quoted by the newspaper as saying it wanted to divest Europe Airpostfor “strategic reasons”.
The postal group wanted to concentrate on developing express post transport by high-speedtrain with state rail company SNCF and “had no desire” to finance the modernisation of EuropeAirpost’s fleet with the purchase of a required 12 extra aircraft, the newspaper said.
DHL, which already works with Europe Airpost, and South Africa’s Safair, which operates twoAirbus A300s to carry Europe Airpost cargo, are thought to be candidates to buy La Poste’ssubsidiary.
The pilots’ union denounced the proposed sale in a statement yesterday, saying it amounted toa “squandering of public services”. A spokesman said the sale could be complete before April’spresidential election.
