Sporadic strikes in France are causing European flight chaos

Walkouts among French air traffic controllers have led to thousands of flight cancellations since the start of the year, raising worries for Easter travel and further denting the image of a country that’s been wracked by protests. The French civil aviation authority DGAC has asked airlines to limit the number of flights on and off for weeks at Paris Orly and some other airports, at a time when the nation is being roiled by strikes over an unpopular pension reform. DGAC expects more disruptions amid Thursday’s nationwide walkouts and protests. Labor action by air traffic controllers not only affects flights to and from France but also leads to turmoil elsewhere in Europe, causing delays for planes that fly over the country to reach other destinations. Ryanair Holdings, Europe’s biggest low-cost airline, has gone so far as to ask passengers to sign an online petition urging European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to “keep EU skies open” amid the walkouts. Twenty-five days of strikes among French air traffic controllers in the first three months of the year forced it to cancel 3,080 flights, leaving more than half a million passengers stranded with short notice, the carrier said. “Everything is completely backed up over Europe,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said last week. “Why? because the French have a bunch of air traffic controllers walking off the job engaging in recreational striking.” The number of flights under the control of French authorities in the country’s airspace totaled about 220,600 last month, down from roughly 243,000 in March 2019, a spokesman for DGAC said in response to a Bloomberg query. The authority was unable to provide a specific number of canceled flights in France this year related to strikes, nor could it estimate the ripple effects on air travel elsewhere in Europe. The DGAC doesn’t demand cancellations for flights over France when controllers walk out, but “control capacity restrictions that allow a high level of security on the basis of available workforce may cause delays,” with consequences for air travel in other countries, the spokesman said. At this stage, DGAC is not expecting cancellations for Easter weekend. While protests in France have calmed over the past week, the unpredictable walkouts are still affecting airline passengers. On Monday, all flights to France from Berlin airport were indicated as delayed. And even though DGAC anticipated no strikes in France on Wednesday, the pilot of an Air France flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Berlin blamed air traffic controller walkouts for a delay in takeoff. <br/>