In a statement, the Irish company castigates “the mismanagement of French air traffic control” and calls the French Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot to take “urgent” measures.
Some 6.5 million Ryanair passengers have undergone delays since the start of the year due to strikes and “mismanagement” in French air traffic control, the first airline in Europe denounced on Friday.
“More than 36,000 Ryanair flights and more than 6 million passengers have undergone delays between January 1 and July 22, 2025 due to the mismanagement of the French air traffic control service, the lack of recreational staff and strikes'”, wrote the Irish company Ryanair in a statement.
The airline calls for the French Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot to take “urgent” measures to reform this service by estimating that “90% of these delays could have been avoided”.
It recommends protecting overflights during national strikes and forcing air controllers to ensure a complete workforce for the departures of the first wave every day.
Much more in France than with our neighbors
According to Ryanair, France is the country in Europe where air traffic control causes the most delays for its passengers. For comparison, 3.8 million passengers have undergone delays attributed to air controllers in Spain, 1.8 in Germany, 700,000 in the United Kingdom and 600,000 in Portugal, according to the statistics cited by the company.
The latest, the strike launched by two minority unions of French skylights on July 3 and 4, demanding an improvement in working conditions and larger workforce, affected more than a million passengers and cost around 120 million euros to European companies, according to the Eurocontrol traffic monitoring organization.
The British airline Easyjet also denounced “the important costs” linked to this social movement when it was published in its third quarter results on July 17.
