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Cancelled
French strikes force Aer Lingus and Ryanair to cancel flights
French air traffic controllers are striking today and tomorrow.
HUNDREDS OF PASSENGERS are facing travel chaos due to French air traffic control (ATC) strikes today.
The strike action has forced Ryanair to cancel 22 flights today and 72 flights on Thursday.
Ryanair passengers can find a list of the cancelled flights for today, here and for Thursday, here.
Aer Lingus flights have also been affected today.
The cancelled Aer Lingus flights are as follows:
- EI 592 Dublin to Madrid
- EI 593 Madrid to Dublin
- EI 510 Dublin to Perpignan
- EI 511 Perpignan to Dublin
- EI 748 Dublin to Bilbao
- EI 749 Bilbao to Dublin
- EI 526 Dublin to Paris
- EI 527 Paris to Dublin
- EI 876 Cork to Lanzarote
- EI 877 Lanzarote to Cork
The airline has apologised to customers but said the disruption “is due to circumstances beyond our control”.
Condemnation
Ryanair has condemned the two-day strike action, and called on the European Commission to take action to prevent “the skies over Europe being closed once more” due to French ATC unions.
In a statement the airline said:
Ryanair and other EU airlines have repeatedly called upon the Commission to introduce simple measures, which would alleviate the impact of these frequent ATC strikes on Europe’s citizens.
It said ATC unions should be required to engage in binding arbitration instead of strikes.
Ryanair also wants Europe’s other ATCs to operate while union strikes are ongoing and said airlines should be allowed to recover their expenses from striking ATC providers.
Passengers impacted are entitled to a full refund or they can rebook on the next available flight.
Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said it’s ”reprehensible that Europe’s consumers repeatedly have their holiday and travel plans disrupted or cancelled by the selfish actions of ATC unions, who use strikes as a first weapon rather than a last resort”.
He said the strike will impact hundreds of thousands of European consumers and throw their travel plans into chaos once more.
It’s high time that the European Commission takes action to prevent these repeated ATC strikes from continuously disrupting the travel plans of millions of Europe’s citizens and their families.
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