PARIS
Air France pilots have voted to extend their strike - which has already left 60 percent of the airline's planes grounded - into a second week, according to French daily Le Figaro.
The strike - the biggest to affect the national-carrier since 1998 - will continue from Tuesday 23 to Friday 26 September, union bosses were reported as saying on Friday.
Jean-Louis Barber, the head of pilots' union Syndicat National des Pilotes de Linge (SNPL), told French daily Le Monde on Thursday that the industrial action may go on indefinitely unless its demands are met.
"The response is going to be very, very clear. If the pilots vote to continue the strike, this time it will be for an unlimited duration," he said.
- Strike "incomprehensible"
The week-long industrial action - in its fifth day - is in response to the airline’s plans to hire hundreds of new pilots on lower pay to fly for Transavia, a budget subsidiary.
The action has left more than 60 percent of Air France flights cancelled.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls urged pilots to go back to work, telling France Inter radio that the strike was "incomprehensible".
Air France Chief Executive Frederic Gagey told the radio station that cancellations would cost the company "up to 15 million (euros) a day".
In 1998, seven days before it hosted the football World Cup, 3,200 Air France pilots went on a nine-day strike over cuts in pay.
Three quarters of flights were suspended and the airline lost a total of 900 million francs ($177,318 at present exchange rates - although the French Franc is now obsolete).
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