Air France could cut jobs due to trains competition

PARIS (Reuters) - Air France could cut a quarter of the 4,000 jobs in its domestic network by 2016 due to increased competition from TGV fast trains, a spokesman said on Friday.

"We expect that the competition with the TGV will increase, and we have informed the labor unions of our plans to adapt our organization to that," he said, adding that there would be no lay-offs and all would be absorbed by natural departures over the next eight years.

A number of regional connections could be cancelled or reduced in frequency.

Meanwhile Air France, part of Air France KLM (AIRF.PA), is considering running fast train services itself. The TGV is a brand name owned by state railways company SNCF and uses trains made by Alstom (ALSO.PA).

Alstom recently unveiled the AGV, a new generation of fast trains that have a commercial speed of 360 km per hour instead of 320 km/h for the current generation.

(Reporting by Marcel Michelson, editing by Will Waterman)