French strike 'unlikely to scupper Ireland rugby fans' travel plans'
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Irish rugby fans heading to Paris this weekend are likely to escape the worst of the disruption caused by a general strike of French workers on Friday, which includes those in the transport sector.
Huge numbers of Irish supporters are expected to make the journey to France for the mammoth quarter final tie against New Zealand, but travel expert Eoghan Corry said the strikes should not prevent fans from getting there in time for the game.
“It looks like we’ll get away with this one,” he said. “We’re lucky that there’s so many alternatives around where we’re going.”
He said there were three air different traffic control unions in France and it was the smallest of these unions that was engaging in strike action.
About 40% of flights in and out of Paris Orly are to be cancelled, a further 25% in and out of Marseille-Provence airport, and 15% in and out of Paris Beauvais.
“Beauvais is a little more unpredictable,” Mr Corry said. “But Ryanair are big players there so I think we will get away with it.”
While the strike may cause other disruption to Ireland's army of supporters once they reach France, all fans aiming to get over for the match should be able to, he said.
“We do have a cancellation already,” he said. “We had four or five of those on the weekend of the South Africa game and there wasn’t widespread reports of being stuck. There are so many flights and so much capacity.
“Transport on the ground may be trickier on the Friday if there’s a lot of bodies looking for alternatives at the same time.”
Mr Corry added that Ryanair had added two extra sets of flight to and from Paris Beauvais earlier this week and he suspected it would be able to shift passengers to the Saturday morning in the event of a cancellation.
Tens of thousands of Irish rugby fans have packed into venues for the World Cup so far, and thousands more are expected to be in attendance when the team takes to the field to face down the Haka in the Stade de France on Saturday evening.
Andy Farrell has named an unchanged starting XV from last week's dominant win against Scotland.