Dozens of flights were canceled on Saturday morning at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, affected by a social conflict over wages and working conditions which might also affect the start of the long holidays in a week, following a few days off from Sunday. Airport firefighters strike since Thursdayforced the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) to request preventive flight cancellations: part of the runways had to be closed for safety reasons.
The flights having been canceled in advance and the passengers notified, the manager of Paris airports did not find any major problems. But the salary negotiations did not succeed. If this Sunday is not marked by any flight cancellations, the firefighters have issued a new notice of strike from Friday morning July 8 at 5 a.m. to Sunday evening July 10 at midnight, for the weekend at the start of the school holidays. “We are asking for the opening of new negotiations since the management of ADP has broken off the dialogue”, indicated Daniel Bertone, the general secretary of the CGT of Groupe ADP.
Fifteen flights without baggage on Friday
The employees are demanding a 6% revaluation with retroactive effect from January 1 to compensate for inflation. Management proposed 4% on July 1, he explained, noting that this increase did not catch up with the approximately 5% reduction accepted by employees in the cost reduction plan decided by ADP in the face of the crisis. Covid-19. Management has not confirmed the figures mentioned by the CGT.
It also denies information provided by the unions, according to which 20,000 pieces of luggage were lost on Friday. A breakdown of the sorting system left fifteen flights without passenger luggage on Friday morning, and companies then had problems, acknowledged the spokesman. “But all the luggage will find its owners”, the traceability being ensured, he affirmed.
At the call of an inter-union FO-CGT-CFE-CGC, a strike notice was also filed from Friday to Monday in Marseille-Provence, but without major disruption according to management, personnel having been requisitioned by prefectural decree. The government will “continue to exchange with the unions to find a way out of the crisis”, assured Friday Olivia Gregoire, government spokesperson. “The idea that our compatriots cannot go to holidays is not viable,” she added. The day before, associations of tour operators had estimated that the disruptions in the airports these last few weeks have made “fear the worst for the holidays and the trips of the French and French women”.
