What if one idea from a cabin crew member could become Air France’s next business line?

Air France operates in one of the world’s most competitive, regulated, and operationally demanding environments. With 65 million passengers and 1 million tonnes of freight transported each year, the Group must continuously anticipate industry shifts, find new value pools, and reinvent customer experiences.

But the challenge was twofold:

1. Identify new growth drivers quickly, beyond incremental improvements.
2. Engage a highly mobile, dispersed workforce. From pilots and cabin crew to ground operations and maintenance teams, many employees have limited access to traditional corporate channels.

As Marine Gall, VP Innovation & Intrapreneurship Programs, explains:

“Listening to ideas and sorting through them to select the most interesting projects requires specific tools to make the process a success.”
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Air France needed a simple, inclusive, and scalable model to surface high-value concepts and build a culture of entrepreneurial initiative across the company.

Facing rising competitive pressure, Air France launched Boost the Future, a Group-wide intrapreneurship program designed to uncover promising new businesses and accelerate disruptive initiatives.

Program ambition:

• Turn employee ideas into new business opportunities and revenue streams.
• Foster startup-inspired ways of working: experimentation, co-creation, rapid testing.
• Provide a structured pathway from idea to incubation.

Yumana partnered with Air France to design the full operating model, from governance and workflow to employee experience, before embedding it into the innovation management platform.

The program rapidly became a cornerstone of Air France’s innovation strategy, generating strong engagement and tangible business opportunities.

Air France succeeded in transforming employee creativity into strategic business value, while strengthening engagement and innovation maturity across all functions.

A streamlined, employee-friendly journey was co-designed by Air France and Yumana:

1. 3-Question Application
Employees submit ideas through an ultra-simple form, minimizing friction for mobile teams and more generally for all employees.
2. Team Activation
Idea owners recruit teammates with complementary skills using Yumana’s talent-matching module.
3. Interactive Pitch Phase
Teams pitch their concepts to the community and gather feedback to refine their value proposition.
4. Expert Evaluation
Business experts assess each project on relevance, feasibility, and potential impact.
5. Crowdfunding Voting Session
A gamified, peer-driven mechanism where employees “invest” virtual points to support the most promising ideas.
6. Final Jury & Selection
The 20 top projects pitch to senior decision-makers and 8 are chosen for incubation, with resources and sponsors. 
7. Incubation & Acceleration
Selected teams receive structured support, tools, and visibility to bring concepts closer to commercialization.‍
   

These enablers ensured the program achieved both strategic impact and cultural transformation.