Ryanair demands EU action after strikes ground hundreds of flights
French air traffic controllers have called the latest round of industrial action in a long-running dispute over 'chronic' staff shortages and what unions claim is an authoritarian management culture with unacceptable policing of workers.
Ryanair said the air traffic controllers were, for the umpteenth summer, using the start of the holiday season to leverage their bargaining power. The French school holidays begin at the end of the week.
• French air traffic control strikes: which airports and flights are affected?
Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, said the regularity of French strikes meant such industrial action was now 'recreational.'
He is demanding that Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, steps in urgently to reform air traffic control services across the European Union. He has been calling for similar reforms in the UK over what he has claimed is mismanagement at the privatised National Air Traffic Services.
The industrial action in France is not just affecting flights due to land in the country but also overflights going through French airspace, for instance between the UK and Greece or Spain.
'Once again European families are held to ransom by French air traffic controllers,' said O'Leary. 'It is not acceptable that flights over French airspace en route to their destination are being cancelled or delayed as a result of yet another French strike. It is abundantly unfair on passengers and families going on holidays.
'Ursula von der Leyen must take urgent action to reform European Union air traffic control by ensuring that services are fully staffed for the first wave of daily departures, and protecting overflights. These two reforms would eliminate 90 per cent of all delays and cancellations.'
After the announcement of two days of industrial action, the French authorities have been telling airlines to reduce their number of services to Paris to mitigate the problem. IAG, the British Airways group, is understood to be flying fewer services but with larger aircraft.
EU data indicates France has the worst record for airspace disruption. The French government has condemned the strikes and said they would result in the partly state-owned Air France losing millions of euros.
'The demands made by minority unions are unacceptable, as is the decision to hold this strike at the start of the holiday season,' said Philippe Tabarot, the French transport minister.
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