Paris (AWP/ATS/AFP) – End of school year may rhyme with galley Friday for those who chose the plane. Hundreds of flights will still be canceled in France, in particular at Paris airports, on the second day of a strike of air controllers.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already been affected Thursday in France and Europe by this social movement, triggered by two minority unions which claim an improvement in their working conditions and larger staff. Swiss provides for a dozen flight cancellations in Switzerland.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation estimated at 933 the number of flights removed Thursday on or when France arrives, or around 10% of the flights initially planned. Locally, these rates were much higher: 50% in Nice, third French airport, and 25% in Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, where 350,000 people per day pass through in summer.
Friday, the day of major departures, the situation will be even more tense in Paris airports, since the DGAC asked companies to reduce their flight programs by 40%.
Prime Minister François Bayrou considered this strike “shocking”. “It is taking the French hostage hostage to choose the day everyone goes on vacation to go on air traffic control,” he said Thursday evening on BFMTV.
“Intolerable”
The effects of movement are felt beyond national borders, the main European Airline Association, Airlines for Europe (A4E) having estimated that in Europe, 1,500 flights would be canceled Thursday and Friday, “affecting almost 300,000 passengers” on the old continent.
“This strike is intolerable. French air traffic control is already responsible for delays among the worst in Europe, and now, the actions of a minority of French sky sharpeners will disrupt the holiday projects for thousands of people in France and in Europe,” said A4E general director, Ourania Georgoutsakou.
According to the DGAC, the rates of strikers established 26.2% Thursday, 272 controllers who took part in the movement on the thousand service staff.
The second Syndicate of Steelles of the Heaven, UNSA-ICNA (17% of the votes in the last professional elections) launched this movement to claim better working conditions and greater staff. He was joined by the third union force of the profession, the USAC-CGT (16%).
Throughout Thursday, maintained flights have accused significant delays, especially in Nice and Marseille. A4e quantified “almost 500,000 minutes” accumulated on Thursday in Europe, on nearly 33,000 commercial journeys, many planes using French airspace without necessarily landing in the country.
The first European airline, Ryanair, announced Thursday that it had to cancel 400 flights, affecting 70,000 passengers. His boss Michael O’Leary, familiar with the shine, denounced a situation caused “by a small number of French air controllers participating in recreational strikes” and urged the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to reform air traffic control in Europe, where, failing this, to resign.
Air France confirmed that it was “forced to adapt its flight program”, without specifying the number of cancellations, but stressed that its long-haul network had not been assigned on Thursday.
The strike causes millions of euros “to the airlines,” warned Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot, repeating to not want to give in to “unacceptable” unions on Thursday.
“Toxic management”
A contested reform is underway to establish a score of the controllers at the postal post, following a “serious incident” at Bordeaux airport at the end of 2022, when two planes had almost collided. An investigation had caused responsibility for it on a faulty organization of the work of the sharpeners, apart from the legal framework and without compliance with the service table.
Among the grievances of the UNSA-ICNA: “a maintained sub-effective and responsible for delays a good part of the summer”, obsolete tools and “toxic management, incompatible with the required serenity and security imperatives”.
The first Syndicate of Steers of the Heaven, the SNCTA (60% of the votes), did not call for the strike.
ats/ib
