Strike in the sky on Thursday. As part of a mobilization of air controllers, the Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC) asked the airlines on Tuesday to cancel a quarter of their flights from the start of the big Parisian airports on Thursday.
At the edge of the summer school holidays, this social movement launched by the second and third unions of Aiguilleurs du Ciel will particularly affect airports in the south of France, the DGAC announcing a reduction in half of the flight programs in Nice, the third French airport, as well as in Bastia and Calvi, Corsica.
Lyon, Marseille and Montpellier strongly affected
The administration, which seeks to adequate the number of controllers at their posts and the flights to manage in order to avoid additional disturbances, also claimed cancellations for 30 % of flights at the start and arrival of Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Ajaccio and Figari.
In addition to the links to the airports of Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, the first two of the country, the DGAC demanded from the carriers that they give up a quarter of their flights in Beauvais, a “low-cost” platform where the Irish company Ryanair is based in particular. “Despite these preventive measures, disturbances and significant delays are to be expected on all French airports,” she warns.
“A structural inactive”
After two unsuccessful “conciliation” meetings with the DGAC-the last Monday-the second Syndicate of Sky Steers, UNSA-ICNA, maintained its call to strike on Thursday and Friday. The union organization, which brought together 17 % of the votes in the last professional elections, estimated that the administration had made “no response to alerts transmitted for weeks”, and quoted among its grievances a “structural sub-employment”, “technical projects in check” and “toxic management”.
“The DGAC recognizes the difficulties linked to the situation of chronic sub-employment, which affect the quality of the service rendered to airlines. It is precisely to remedy it that she defends an ambitious recruitment plan, enshrined in a multi -year strategy, in order to guarantee an efficient and secure service, “said the administration last week.
“Strongly degraded social context” at the DGAC
She also said “deeply regret the choice of these dates, which correspond to the most busy days of the year, due to the many vacation departures during this period”. The UNSA-ICNA was joined last Thursday in this movement by the third union of controllers, the USAC-CGT (16 % of the votes), which also denounced a “strongly degraded social context” at the DGAC, but called to strike on July 3 only.
Our file on aviation
“The DGAC does not seem to have measured the level of exasperation of its agents,” said this last organization on Monday. The first controller union, the SNCTA (60 % of the votes), does not call the strike.
