2023-10-09 15:17:30
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation asked airlines on Monday to give up 40% of their flight schedule on Friday at Paris-Orly, the second French airport, due to an inter-professional strike relayed by an air traffic controllers union. Carriers were also called upon to reduce their flight schedules at Marseille-Provence by 20% and at Beauvais by 15%, the DGAC said in a press release, warning that the activity of air navigation centers en route, managing aircraft circulating in French skies would also be affected.
The DGAC invites passengers to postpone their trip
“Despite these preventive measures, disruptions and delays are nevertheless to be expected”, underlined the DGAC, inviting “passengers who can to postpone their trip and to contact their airline to find out the status of their flight”. The union that called for a strike is the USAC-CGT, a minority among air traffic controllers but already at the forefront in the spring in the mobilization against pension reform.
Among the points defended by the USAC-CGT is the fact that “DGAC agents are starting to be impacted by the reform”. The organization also pointed out “increasing inequalities at the DGAC, particularly in terms of salaries” and criticized “the dynamiting of the public aviation service”.
One month after the start of an “Olympic truce”
This notice comes one month after the first union of air traffic controllers, the SNCTA, has committed to respecting an “Olympic truce”, that is to say not to strike between now and the end of the Olympic and Paralympic Games planned in France during the summer 2024.
According to the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune, this agreement also involves the second union in terms of number of votes in the professional elections of air traffic controllers, the UNSA-ICNA. But not the USAC-CGT, the third union. “At a time when some are satisfied with a meager unequal revaluation of DGAC agents (or even non-existent for some) to the point of signing a moratorium on social conflicts (which only involves those who signed it), the USAC-CGT is, on the contrary, responsible for mobilizing agents on these major issues,” he argued in a leaflet calling for a strike on Friday.
Strikes that have outraged airlines
Numerous days of strike by French air traffic controllers at the start of the year, during the conflict over pensions, led the DGAC to ask airlines to preventively cancel part of their flights. These strikes had angered the companies which serve France or pass through its airspace, the most flown over in Europe due to its central geographical position.
These developments come at a time when a bill adopted in June in the Senate provides for the obligation for air traffic controllers to declare themselves on strike 48 hours in advance, as is already the case at the RATP or the SNCF. The text should arrive at the National Assembly this fall, according to Mr. Beaune who described it as a “common sense measure”.
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