Air Macron is launching a stealth takeover of Europe’s skies

The trouble is, this is not exactly a private company operating in the free market. Air France-KLM is effectively controlled by the French government. 

President Macron may sell himself as a free market reformer, but one of his main achievements in office has been steadily turning Air France back into an old-style, state-backed national champion airline. 

He first started investing in the airline as finance minister under the socialist president François Hollande, and has steadily increased its holding since taking the Presidency himself. 

France now owns 28pc of the airline, while the Dutch government owns another 9.9pc. 

As it happens, that has not been a great deal for the long-suffering French taxpayers, with the share price falling by 32pc since the start of the year, and by 82pc over the last five years (compared with a 34pc rise so far this year for IAG, or an 82pc rise for United Airlines, which would seem to indicate that is possible to make money in the aviation business). 

But that doesn’t seem to matter. Macron keeps ploughing more and more cash into Air France, and it doesn’t look like anything is going to stop him now. The French state is intent on a stealth takeover of Europe’s skies. 

Why is it allowed to get away with that? The European Union is meant to have rules that prevent state aid being lavished on national champions. To take just one example, it has spent years taking Apple to court over the low corporate taxes it is charged in Ireland, and fined the company billions of dollars, arguing that it amounts to an unfair subsidy. 

But it turns a completely blind eye to the interference in the airline industry, even though the backing of the French government means the airline potentially has access to cheaper finance than would otherwise be available – after all banks and bondholders know that this business won’t be allowed to go bust – as well as having all the clout of a major European government on its side when it is negotiating over stakes in other country’s national carriers. 

We have no way of knowing if any understandings are being discussed between France and Portugal, or indeed between France and Sweden or Norway. But let’s put it this way: it’s not exactly a level playing field. And that is precisely what the EU is meant to create.

It’s hard not to suspect the real reason for that. Within the EU, the usual rules don’t apply to France. 

Even worse, it is terrible for anyone who wants to fly around Europe, or from the Continent to the rest of the world. 

In effect, Macron Air is creating an old-style, national flag-carrier, except this time on a Continental scale. And yet we all know what the old style airlines were like before they were privatised. They were over-staffed, riddled with inefficiencies, and lost fortunes in the process. And they created cosy cartels, carved up markets, drove ticket prices upwards, and used their government muscle to freeze out low-cost airlines, or any rivals that challenged their monopolies. It was a terrible deal for passengers, especially if they were travelling for leisure instead of for business. 

The French state is intent on taking the European airline industry straight back to the 1970s, with Portugal now the latest market in their sights – and right now it is getting away with it.