Thousands of flights canceled in the middle of French school holidays, hundreds of thousands of passengers “in the dark”: despite a last minute agreement with a union of French air traffic controllers, air traffic promises to be extremely disrupted on Thursday in France and indirectly in Belgium and Europe.
More than 2,000 flights in Europe have been canceled and 1,000 risk having to divert to avoid French airspace, according to the main association of airlines on the Old Continent, Airlines for Europe.
In Belgium, flights to Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Nice and Marseille are canceled this Thursday morning at Zaventem airport (Brussels Airport). Flights to or arriving from Corsica, Rodez, Lourdes, Marseille, Bézier, Carcassonne, Perpignan as well as Bordeaux are also canceled at Brussels-South-Charleroi Airport (BSCA).
Three out of four flights will be canceled departing or arriving from Paris-Orly, France’s second largest airport; 55% in Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, the first; 65% in Marseille-Provence and 45% on all other platforms in mainland France.
These cancellations, on an unprecedented scale “for around twenty years” according to the boss of Parisian airports Augustin de Romanet, were imposed by the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) in view of the number of strikers declared among the essential air traffic controllers. However, the announcement on Wednesday morning of an agreement to end the crisis by the main union, the SNCTA, had given rise to hope for a reduction in the constraints weighing on airlines.
But according to the DGAC, “the late conclusion of negotiations with the SNCTA and the need to finalize discussions with other trade union organizations will not make it possible to avoid disruptions” on Thursday. Ryanair, whose boss continues to denounce the French strikes, alone canceled “more than 300 flights” on Thursday, Transavia 198 flights, while Air France warned that “significant cancellations and delays (were) to be expected “. The DGAC has advised passengers who can to “postpone their trip”.
The subject of the negotiations is the overhaul of French air traffic control. The SNCTA, which gathered 60% of the votes of air traffic controllers in the last elections, protested against the accompanying measures of this reform, in particular salaries, and demanded, among other things, a 25% increase in remuneration spread over five years. He predicted a “record mobilization” for Thursday, despite the commitment not to strike for salary reasons as part of an “Olympic truce” announced last September.
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