2023-10-23 05:00:00
DIn the opinion of a connoisseur of the matter, “it’s an Indian summer which can suddenly turn into a storm”. The metaphor says enough regarding the instabilities in the Corsican sky, in this autumn with hints of summer. Moreover, it is not without hot flashes that the elected representatives of the Corsican assembly are preparing to designate, at the end of November, the operator who will ensure, for four years, the next air public service delegation (DSP) between the four Corsican airports and three destinations on the continent, Paris-Orly, Nice and Marseille.
At the origin of this notice of turbulence in the island political and economic world: the candidacy of the Catalan low cost company Volotea for the call for tenders launched by the transport office of the community of Corsica, to ensure, on the period 2024-2027, air service to the region. An essential public service for the island of 350,000 inhabitants, which concerns unprofitable lines, but whose implementation provides for the payment of significant financial compensation for the awarded operator.
“The confrontation of two models”
If the emergence of this “new kid” in the procedure relating to the DSP puts the Corsican political world on alert, it is because it has shaken up the situation in island air transport, until then organized around the Air France-Air Corsica grouping. Two companies which have together provided public service to the island for three decades.
“It is the confrontation of two models, which potentially calls into question a balance and a monopolistic system,” observes Patrice Salini, transport economist. All this contributes to creating an explosive case, where there will probably be no solution without breakage. »READ ALSO Four questions regarding Air France’s departure from Orly airport
On the one hand, the low-cost offensive, which arrived on the island in 2012 through a summer offer which transported, according to the operator, nearly 7 million passengers. On the other, two parapublic companies, including the Air Corsica company. 67% owned by the community of Corsica, it was founded in 1990 to ensure public service to the island and remains, even today, largely dependent on this DSP, which represents the bulk of its activity.
“Since the call for tenders was launched, we have been living with a lump in our stomach,” worries Karine Fattaccioli, elected from the Corsican workers’ union (STC) on the Air Corsica social and economic committee. If Volotea’s offer is accepted, we are heading towards a social catastrophe, with the 700 jobs of our company and the 250 employees of Air France on the island being put at risk. » In an interview with Corse-Matinon October 16, the president of Air Corsica, Luc Bereni, did not hide it: “We will fight until the last minute, because there is no plan B.”
The ax of the European Commission
Concerns are all the more acute as the Spanish company has brought out heavy artillery. The amount of financial compensation claimed by Volotea to ensure service to the island would in fact amount to 50 million euros per year, compared to more than… 96 for the Air Corsica-Air France tandem. It is an understatement to say that this issue embarrasses the nationalist executive of the Corsican assembly.
First of all for social reasons, given the number of jobs at stake within the island company, which ranks fourth among the largest companies on the island. But also because he will have to make a decision under the keen gaze of the European Commission.
Elected officials remember a significant episode regarding the responsibilities of DSP in terms of transport: the conviction of the community of Corsica to pay, in September 2021, 86.3 million euros to the shipping company Corsica Ferries, in compensation of damage linked to the illegal subsidizing of its competitor, the former SNCM, between 2007 and 2013.
The European Commission had judged the financial compensation granted by the region, of around 40 million euros per year, to be “incompatible” with freedom of competition. “The Corsican community is not immune to this type of procedure,” points out Patrice Salini. The precedent of SNCM, which did not, moreover, have the territorial character of Air Corsica, necessarily weighs on the debate. »
The autonomist current, however, seems to have already chosen its camp. In the heart of summer, on July 14, activists from Femu a Corsica, the party of the president of the Corsican executive Gilles Simeoni, carried out a symbolic action at Ajaccio airport (Southern Corsica). , to provide support to Air Corsica employees, the day following Volotea’s candidacy, and to make known their “attachment to the fundamental principles of public service”.
Because behind this DSP there is also a more political question: that of public control of transport, a highly strategic sector on an island in search of greater autonomy. At a time when the Corsican community is working on the creation of a public regional shipping company, approved by the various nationalist tendencies in September 2016, the undermining of its airline would be bad news, to say the least.
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