French strike forces Ryanair cancellations

Striking French air traffic controllers forced Ryanair to cancel some flights to and from the country on Tuesday.

French air traffic controllers downed tools on Monday night to “support” a general strike against proposed pension changes. Ryanair said that it cancelled a small number of flights to and from France as a consequence of the industrial action, which is timed to last until Wednesday.

The airline confirmed that thousands of passengers, including some on flights to and from Dublin, will suffer across the three days of strikes. Aer Lingus reported no disruption to its schedule.

French controllers walked out just hours after Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary highlighted that such strikes threatened to disrupt many Europeans’ holiday flights this summer.

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The industrial action prompted further demands from Ryanair that the European Commission protect flights when individual states’ air traffic controllers go on strike. This would allow flights that travel through a country’s air space without landing to continue when controllers’ strike. Greece and Italy already protect these journeys through their skies.

French controllers’ strikes pose serious problems for travel across Europe as the country’s size and position result in many flights to other states toing through its air space. Those flights are therefore vulnerable to industrial action.

Ryanair has frequently pointed out that Irish, British, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese passengers all suffer when French air traffic controllers walk out, forcing airlines to cancel, delay or re-route flights.

At the same time, France’s own rules protect domestic flights within the country from the impact of industrial action. Industry groups including Airlines for Europe, whose members include Aer Lingus parent International Airlines Group, repeatedly call on the EU to reform air traffic control to avoid these disruptions.

Ryanair’s director of operations Neal McMahon accused the European Commission of ignoring the widespread impact of French strikes on EU passengers that are not travelling to or from the country. He argued that the Greek and Italian approach was the simplest way of avoiding “unnecessary mass disruption”.

Mr McMahon called on the European Commission to immediately implement this across the EU to “prevent the needless disruption of air traffic control strikes last summer being repeated in summer ‘23“.

A Ryanair statement said French air traffic control disputes delayed hundreds of thousands of passengers last summer.

The airline claimed that the Ursula von der Leyen-led European Commission had failed to protect the EU’s single air travel market by not tackling the problem.

Earlier this week, Mr O’Leary told analysts that air traffic control problems, particularly in France and Germany, would cause problems for holidaymakers this summer.