Air transport: hundreds of thousands of passengers affected by the air traffic controllers' strike

More than 1,500 flights have been canceled and others have suffered significant delays, with hundreds of thousands of passengers affected in Europe. A strike by French air traffic controllers on Thursday, July 3, and Friday, July 4, has seriously disrupted the start of the summer holidays, costing airlines "millions of euros."

The French Civil Aviation Authority (DGCA) estimated the number of flights canceled on Thursday to 933, departing from or arriving in France, or about 10% of the flights initially scheduled. Locally, these rates were much higher: 50% at Nice, France's third-largest airport, and 25% at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, which together account for 350,000 passengers a day during the summer.

Prime Minister François Bayrou called the strike "shocking." "It's taking the French people hostage by choosing the day everyone goes on holiday to hold an air traffic control strike," he said Thursday evening on BFMTV.

The effects of the strike are being felt beyond Europe's borders, with the main European airline association, Airlines for Europe (A4E), estimating that 1,500 flights would be cancelled across Europe on Thursday and Friday, the second day of the strike, "affecting almost 300,000 passengers" on the continent.

"This strike is intolerable. French air traffic control is already responsible for some of the worst delays in Europe, and now the actions of a minority of French air traffic controllers will disrupt the holiday plans of thousands of people in France and Europe," said A4E CEO Ourania Georgoutsakou.

According to the DGAC, the strike rate was 26.2%, with 272 air traffic controllers taking part in the movement out of a thousand service personnel.

The second-largest air traffic controllers' union, Unsa-Icna (17% of the vote in the last professional elections), launched this movement to demand better working conditions and increased staffing levels. It was joined by the third-largest union in the profession, Usac-CGT (16%).

Throughout the day, flights that were still operating experienced significant delays, with delays of up to an hour and a half in Nice, according to the DGAC dashboard. A4E estimated that on Thursday, delays in Europe totaled "almost 500,000 minutes" on nearly 33,000 journeys.

On Friday, the day before the school holidays, the situation will be even more tense at Paris airports and Beauvais, a stronghold of low-cost airlines , where the DGAC (French Air Transport Authority) has ordered a 40% reduction in the number of flights. Europe's leading airline, Ryanair, announced on Thursday that it had had to cancel 400 flights, affecting 70,000 passengers, in a new report.

Its boss, Michael O'Leary, who is no stranger to high-profile stunts, denounced the situation as caused by "a small number of French air traffic controllers taking part in recreational strikes" and urged the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to reform air traffic control in Europe, or to resign if she was "not ready" to do so .

Air France confirmed that it had been "forced to adapt its flight schedule" , without specifying the number of cancellations, but stressed that its long-haul network was not affected.

The strike is costing airlines "millions of euros," Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot warned on Thursday, reiterating his refusal to give in to the unions ' "unacceptable" demands.

A controversial reform is underway to establish a time clock for controllers upon taking up their positions, following a "serious incident" at Bordeaux airport in late 2022, when two planes nearly collided. An investigation blamed the faulty organization of the controllers' work.

Among the grievances of the Unsa-Icna: "understaffing maintained and responsible for delays for a good part of the summer" , obsolete tools and "toxic management, incompatible with the imperatives of serenity and security required" .