France's flagship carrier Air France plans to reduce its staff by up to 2,600 next year to help improve its financial assets, local media reported on Wednesday.

During an extraordinary meeting gathering of managers and unions, Air France decided to lay off between 2,500 and 2,600 workers to compensate losses and cut costs amid a morose economic climate, BFMTV news quoted CGT union as saying.

The new measure included voluntary departures at Air France's medium-haul business which suffered heavy losses, it added.

Air France-KLM, the joint Franco-Dutch venture, aims to save 2 billion euros (about 2.64 billion U. S. dollars) by 2015 via job-cutting and reconstructuring, according to the report.

During the first six months of this year, Air France posted negative net results at 793 million euros due to a dim performance by the group's medium-haul and cargo operations.

New job cuts at Europe's leading airline were announced as French unemployment rate stands above 10 percent and the number of jobless hit a 14-year high. President Francois Hollande had earlier pledged to overturn rampant joblessness by the end of this year and inject new dynamism into the limp domestic industrial business.