Christine Ourmieres-Widener is President and CEO of French Bee.
With the 2024 Summer Olympics approaching, it’s a busy season for airlines flying to and from Paris and Tahiti. Among them, French Bee has carved out a place for itself in the skies with connections not only to the City of Lights, but also to the French Polynesian capital of Papeete.
This low-cost airline also celebrates the first anniversary of the appointment of its current CEO and President Christine Ourmières-Widener in August.
Ourmières-Widener is French Bee’s first female CEO and leads the eight-year-old nonstop carrier from certain U.S. routes to Paris Orly, its home airport.
With an engineering degree from Isae-ENSMA and a master’s degree in marketing from ESSEC Business School, the Avignon native has embarked on a solid path in the aerospace industry.
Her career soared
French Bee has a fleet of Airbus A350s.
After graduating from school, Ourmières-Widener was hired by Air France and began working in a maintenance hangar, repairing aircraft such as Airbuses and the famous Concorde. “I was the only woman surrounded by very experienced technicians,” she recalls.
Over time, Ourmières-Widener rose through the ranks at Air France from the late 1990s to 2010 and beyond. She spent one year as the first woman to head Air France-KLM in the United States (2009-2010). In her last position at the French airline, she oversaw 14 airports with revenues of $1.6 billion.
Ourmières-Widener’s resume also includes years at Amadeus, a French travel technology company, and as Global Sales Director at American Express Global Business Travel.
Her previous leadership positions include CEO and COO of CityJet, an Irish regional airline, and CEO of Flybe, a British low-cost airline, until July 2019. In the same year, she sold the latter airline to an investment consortium.
Immediately before taking office at French Bee, Ourmières-Widener led TAP Air Portugal, where during her two-year tenure she turned around the Portuguese low-cost carrier, achieving record profitability in 2022 while driving forward a complex restructuring plan.
Whatever her role, Ourmières-Widener is always aware of the magic behind the takeoff or landing of an aircraft, namely the fact that an extensive network of aviation collaborators makes it all possible.
“It was something special,” explained Ourmières-Widener. “And when I started my career, it was a validation; it was definitely a passion.”
A general view of the Eiffel Tower as the Olympic Rings are displayed during the preview before the … (+)
The hype about the French bee
French Bee was founded in 2016 by its first CEO and airline manager Marc Rochet and Jean-Paul Dubreuil, Chairman of the Board of its parent company Groupe Dubreuil.
Originally known as “French Blue,” the airline’s name was changed to “French bee” to avoid a possible lawsuit with JetBlue. The company added Reunion Island to its schedule in the summer of 2017, then San Francisco and Tahiti in 2018, and then New York via Newark in 2021. Its nonstop flights to the United States to Orly also include Miami and Los Angeles, as well as a flight from San Francisco to Papeete.
As CEO of French Bee, Ourmières-Widener joins a group of other female CEOs in the aviation industry, such as Lynne Embleton of Aer Lingus, Tottori Mitsuko of Japan Airlines and Joanna Geraghty of JetBlue.
This is a good sign after a 2021 survey by the International Air Transport Association showed that women are still underrepresented in leadership positions at airlines. In response to the pilot shortage, there are now efforts to close this employment gap by giving women more opportunities.
“I think it’s wonderful to see what it’s like for women to work in the aviation industry,” said Ourmières-Widener.
Guests walk through the gates of the Orly Airport metro station on June 19, 2024. Orly Airport is also … (+)
Service on board
When booking, French Bee offers three fare categories: Basic, Smart and Premium. In these categories, passengers can book additional services such as amenity kits and different seat assignments.
A unique booking option offered by French Bee is the Train + Air service, a package that combines these two travel options. The package is offered in partnership with SNCF (French Railways) and serves 15 stations, including Aix-en-Provence TGV, Avignon TGV, Lyon Part-Dieu and Marseille St-Charles.
Ourmières-Widener points to the efforts in France to switch from domestic flights to more domestic rail travel and believes that the promotion of the connection from Orly shows how advantageous this form of travel is.
“We also do a lot online because our customers want to do everything online,” she said. “We have a help desk that is also based in the US for US customers.”
On its flights, French Bee offers three fare categories to choose from: Basic, Smart and Premium.
Ready for gold?
Ourmières-Widener pointed out that French Bee had held coordination and planning meetings on logistics for Paris and the French overseas territories as part of the preparations for the 2024 Olympic Games. “And that is also the beauty of this event: people will discover the dimension of France on a broader basis.”
In recent years, since its inception, the airline has seen a change in the audience it attracts, registering an increase in the number of business travelers and groups as passengers, as well as an increase and general shift in bookings during the months of September and October, when travel to Paris is usually quieter.
“We have to motivate our customers to continue to travel to this wonderful country,” said Ourmières-Widener. “There is no bad season in France.”
