BRUSSELS — A two-day strike by French air traffic controllers disrupted more than a thousand flights, and airlines are hopping mad over the millions of euros they’ve lost.
Airlines are increasingly angry over the frequent French strikes that regularly upend their schedules.
“There’s no shortage of air traffic controllers in France.
“It’s not something that you see in the rest of Europe.” Unions have long complained about structural understaffing of air traffic controllers.
This week’s walkout was called by France’s second-largest air traffic controllers’ union, UNSA-ICNA; it was joined by the USAC-CGT, the third-largest union.
BRUSSELS — Airlines are furious over the millions of euros they lost as a result of the two-day strike by French air traffic controllers that disrupted over a thousand flights.
Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, told POLITICO, “I’d be better if I wasn’t canceling 400 flights and 70,000 passengers just because a bunch of French air traffic controllers want to have recreational strikes.”.
For us, the walkout “is very expensive.”. “It costs us millions of euros,” Air France-KLM Group CEO Benjamin Smith stated on a press conference.
Disputes between two unions and the French directorate general for civil aviation over understaffing and the implementation of a new biometric time clock system to track air traffic controllers’ attendance at work led to the strike, which happened on Thursday and Friday.
Frequent strikes in France have caused schedule disruptions, which has infuriated airlines.
In France, there is no shortage of air traffic controllers. The French controllers “are just badly managed,” O’Leary added, adding that the true problem is that they don’t roster them very well. “”.
For travelers arriving in France at the start of the summer vacation season, the strike “is a horrible image for France, to be faced with either delayed or canceled flights,” Smith continued. You don’t see it in the rest of Europe. “”.
The systematic understaffing of air traffic controllers has long been a source of grievance for unions.
French investigators have found that short staffing contributed to a near-collision between an easyJet aircraft and a private jet at the Bordeaux airport in December 2022. Instead of the six controllers needed by the duty roster, they discovered that three were in the tower at the time of the incident.
The second-largest union in France for air traffic controllers, UNSA-ICNA, called for this week’s walkout, and the third-largest union, USAC-CGT, joined in. Approximately 270 of the 1,400 controllers took part in the strike on Thursday, according to AFP.
During these actions, which disrupt Europe, the airlines also accused France of not protecting aircraft flying over the nation.
O’Leary declared, “It is indefensible that I am canceling flights from Portugal to Poland, from Germany to Spain, and from Ireland to Italy today.”.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, was singled out by the low-cost airline’s leader as the culprit.
“360, or 90 percent of those flights, would operate if the Commission protected the overflights as Spain, Italy, and Greece do during air traffic control strikes,” O’Leary said, referring to Ryanair’s 400 cancellations brought on by the strike. “”.
“We must protect the single market, the single market is sacrosanct, nothing would be allowed to disrupt the single market,” he said, referring to the big song and dance that Von der Leyen and the Commission made during Brexit. “Unless you’re an air traffic controller from France and have the authority to close the skies over France.”. “”.
Because she is a worthless politician, Ursula von der Leyen would prefer to sit in her Brussels office and pontificate about Palestine or the United States. S. . trade pacts or other matters. Following her demand that von der Leyen resign unless she could reform European air traffic control, O’Leary stated, “Anything but take any effective action to protect the flights of holidaymakers.”.
Von der Leyen is facing criticism for a number of his actions, and next week the European Parliament will vote on his confidence.
Transport spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen stated that air traffic control issues are “on the Commission’s radar,” but the European Commission did not address Ryanair’s statement. “.”.
However, she added during a press briefing that “air traffic controlling is the responsibility of member states and countries generally, per international and EU legislation.”.
A question about airlines’ requests to overfly nations during strikes prompted Itkonen to respond, “We fully acknowledge the legitimate right of strikes in member states, but it is an issue that is to be addressed more broadly.”.
