From 7:30 a.m. this Tuesday, December 17, the airports of Montpellier, Nîmes and Perpignan will be completely paralyzed by a strike launched by the main French air traffic controllers union, the SNCTA. In the Hérault capital, only the 6-hour flight to Paris will therefore be provided.
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This is a last minute cancellation which regular passengers at Montpellier, Nîmes and Perpignan airports would have done well without. According to AFP, a call for a strike by air traffic controllers unhappy with the state of negotiations on the organization of their work will paralyze traffic this Tuesday, December 17 at these three airports. The call for mobilization was launched on December 8 by the main union of French air traffic controllers, the SNCTA, against a backdrop of difficult “negotiations on the organization of work“.
Pour “limit traffic disruptions“and avoid forced cancellations, once passengers are already at the airports, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) asked companies to give up all or part of their flight programs this Tuesday, for “match the number of available air traffic controllers and the flow of aircraft to be managed“, reports AFP.
The administration invited Monday “passengers who can do so to postpone their trip and contact their airline to find out the status of their flight“.
The DGAC therefore announced that “air navigation services will be closed from Tuesday December 17 at 7:00 a.m. to Wednesday December 18 at 6:45 a.m.“, leading to the cancellation of flights departing from and arriving at these airports. Consequently, only the 6-hour flight to Paris Charles-de-Gaulle, operated by Air France, is maintained this Tuesday morning, confirms to France 3 Montpellier-Mediterranean airport, which has all the same “awaited the decisions of each airline“.
Other airports will be very impacted by this movement, including Lyon-Saint-Éxupéry, the 5th French airport, which should receive 60% fewer flights than usual on Tuesday. Delays will be expected throughout the day in Ajaccio as well. Béziers-Cap d'Agde airport had no passenger flights scheduled for this Tuesday, on departure and arrival.
Justifying its call for a strike, the SNCTA management said:strongly condemns the sudden end to negotiations concerning the organization of the work of the organizations of Ajaccio, Lyon and Montpellier for 2025“, considering that the administration “chooses the rupture and deprives the air traffic controllers of these control centers of visibility“.
