Paris - Air France pilots backed the expansion of the airline's low-cost subsidiary despite staging their longest strike over the development of Transavia in September, their union said Wednesday.
More than four-fifths of the pilots took part in the vote, and of those, 53% voted in favour of an expansion, the largest of Air France's pilots unions, SNPL, said.
The pilots walked off their jobs for two weeks in September and cost Air France-KLM about €500m. The strike ended under pressure from the government without an agreement on a new pay deal for Transavia pilots.
Air France said it needs to reduce crew costs to make Transavia into a competitor with the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet.
The proposal before the pilots this week included whether to expand Transavia's fleet from 14 to 40 planes.