The French air traffic controllers’ strike notice on Thursday plunged “hundreds of thousands of passengers into limbo” in Europe, despite an extremis agreement with the majority union.
Airlines are outraged and tens of thousands of passengers will be deprived of planes on Thursday in France and Europe despite the lifting of a strike notice by the main air traffic controllers union, the deadline being too short to reschedule flights .
Three out of four flights will be canceled departing from or arriving at Paris-Orly, the second largest French airport; 55% in Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, the first; 65% in Marseille-Provence and 45% on all other platforms in mainland France. 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.
Ryanair, whose boss continues to denounce the French strikes, alone canceled “more than 300 flights” on Thursday, and Transavia, the low-cost airline of the Air France-KLM group, 198 flights. And the International Air Transport Association (Iata), which brings together more than 300 companies, for its part accused French air traffic controllers of “blackmail” with their “exorbitant demands”.
