AFP news has recently revealed an internal inquiry that accuses Air France staff of being light on safety issues.

The news came after the major international carrier commissioned a panel of eight experts on aviation to assess the firm’s practices in regards to safety following the fatal 2009 crash of a Paris-bound Air France A330 over the Atlantic Ocean. AFP has reported it has obtained the report, which said that commercial operations often came before safety in Air France staff’s priorities.

According to the report, the notion of safety being the absolute number one priority has not spread among the Paris-based carrier’s staff, despite its top officials regularly asserting that this was very much the airline’s top concern. It said that the term ‘safety first’ was a rarity among Air France flight crew members, which often lead to commercial concerns becoming the primary concern on some flights.

The report’s authors stated that Air France lacked a ‘strong line’ in establishing safety priorities, which it says is something necessary for day-to-day operations. It said that many employees felt that the safety training they had received was ‘too theoretical’ whilst others called it ‘ineffective’. The report also cited bad relations between pilots and cabin crew members, saying that pilots were often ‘arrogant and authoritarian’.