Air France pilots vote to extend strike by a week

Air France pilots have voted to extend for another week a strike over their airline's push to develop a low-cost subsidiary they fear will undermine their jobs, their main union said Saturday.

The stoppage, which has already run for nearly a week, is already the longest suffered by Air France in 16 years.

More than half of the company's flights have been scrapped, disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers. The airline says it is losing up to 15 million euros ($19 million) per day.

The industrial action is to protest Air France's focus on its budget subsidiary, Transavia, launched to compete with no-frills airlines the likes of easyJet, which are increasingly grabbing market share for flights around Europe and the Mediterranean.