Irish flights cancelled due to French air traffic control strikes
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Multiple flights from Irish airports may be cancelled due to French air traffic control strikes starting at 7pm on Monday.
Ryanair’s Cork to Carcassonne service is one of the routes that will be impacted, with customers already being notified of the cancellation of its flight on Tuesday.
Hundreds of flights will be cancelled across Europe from Monday evening through to early on Wednesday morning due to French strike action, Ryanair has warned. Tuesday will be the main day of strike action.
A spokesperson for Daa, which operates Cork and Dublin airports, has advised all passengers to stay in contact with their airline if their flight is to fly through French air traffic control space in the coming days.
Ryanair has called on the European Commission to take urgent action to protect overflights and EU citizens’ freedom of movement during the French air traffic control (ATC) strike.
There were 58 days of ATC strikes in the past five months, a Ryanair statement said.
These repeated ATC strikes forced airlines to cancel thousands of EU overflights from Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the UK, Ryanair said.
Last week, Ryanair delivered its ‘Protect Overflights: Keep EU Skies Open’ petition to the office of EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s, having collected more than 1.1m signatures from passengers demanding that the EU Commission protect overflights and EU citizens’ freedom of movement during repeated ATC strikes.
The company said that hundreds of EU overflights will be cancelled again this week due to French ATC strikes.
Ryanair also said that if ATC strikes require cancellations, then these should be allocated to domestic/short-haul flights to and from the affected state. Binding arbitration for ATC disputes should be enforced before strike action, the company said.
It also called for 21-day notice of strike action and 72-hour notice of employee participation in ATC strikes to minimise passenger disruption.
A Ryanair spokesperson said: "It is utterly unacceptable that Ursula von der Leyen is ignoring these more than 1.1m passengers, who are sick and tired of having their overflights cancelled at short notice due to repeated ATC strikes.
"As a result, hundreds more overflights are being disproportionately cancelled by yet another French ATC strike taking place today, 5th, and tomorrow, 6th June.
"It is completely impermissible that ATC strikes can result in the cancellation of thousands of EU passengers’ flights, while France and other EU member states use minimum service laws to protect their domestic flights.
"The EU Commission must now take urgent action and insist that all States protect overflights during ATC strikes as is already done in Greece, Italy, and Spain.”
French strikes have already caused chaos for some Irish flights this year, with multiple routes cancelled in previous months.
French air traffic controllers have been protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to increase the state pension age from 62 to 64, a move which has sparked mass protests across the country.