Air France-KLM CEO Opens Up on Turnaround Efforts Amid Legacy Woes
Photo Credit: Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith (left) speaks at Skift Global Forum in New York City on Sept. 19, 2019. Skift
Skift Take
Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith inherited a complicated mess when he took the top job last year, but he has begun methodically turning the company around, winning contracts from labor and simplifying the fleet and route network.
Since Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith took the job last year, he has been laser-focused on simplifying what, to be kind, was a massively complicated company.
Air France in particular was marked by complicated routes that made little financial sense, a complicated fleet of dozens of different aircraft types and interior configurations, and even an extra brand — Joon — that to Smith's eyes served no purpose, despite its charter to be the airline of choice for millennials. And even on the human front, Smith inherited an airline with such fraught labor relations that negotiations on one memorable occasion had devolved into fisticuffs.
But despite whispers that Smith, a Canadian who was the first non-French na
