Air France, one of France’s flagship airlines, has asked the government in Paris to limit access to its Chinese rivals in the country, saying they enjoy an unfair advantage by being able to fly over Russia, Bloomberg reports.

Air France-KLM, the company that owns both Air France and Dutch airline KLM, has called on Emmanuel Macron’s government to introduce additional taxes or other measures that would raise costs for Chinese companies to levels close to those of domestic passenger carriers. Many sources may be familiar with the discussions.

The removal of market barriers to Chinese airlines has given a huge boost to France’s hotel and restaurant sector after the lifting of severe restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they said, but the move poses problems for Air France, which operates 32 flights. flights weekly between France and mainland China before the coronavirus outbreak.

“We support capacity increase [de transport aerian] between France and China, but we have to have fair competition,” said an Air France spokesman when asked about the information.

“At the moment there is a distortion of competition that needs to be taken into account,” he added.

The largest shareholder of the airline is France

A French government source told Bloomberg that Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne’s government is considering a “gradual and balanced” resumption of air travel with China and that representatives of several ministries will soon meet to discuss the issue.

In 2021, the French state became Air France’s largest shareholder after contributing up to 4 billion euros to recapitalize the company to deal with economic problems caused by the suspension of thousands of flights during the pandemic.

The French state owns 29% of the company’s shares.

The entire European Union closed its airspace to Russian aircraft on February 27 last year, shortly after the Russian invasion began.

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