Air traffic controllers’ strike: Ryanair, Air France… thousands of canceled flights, Black Friday in sight at airports

This Friday, September 16 promises to be very complicated if you want to take a plane. In question, a strike notice filed by the SNCTA union.

Thousands of canceled flights. Like other companies before it, Ryanair announced on Thursday that it was canceling 420 flights on Friday due to of the controllers’ strike in France.

The reduction in the Irish company’s flight schedule, which operates up to 3,000 flights a day in Europe in high season, will affect around 80,000 passengers, the group said in a statement.

Upstream, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) had asked airlines on Tuesday to reduce their flight schedule by 50% on Friday because of the strike.

Air France has canceled 55% of its flights

“It is time for the European Union to step in and protect overflights so that European passengers are not held hostage by a tiny French air traffic control union,” Ryanair chief operating officer Neal McMahon said in the statement.

Other air traffic control centers should be allowed to handle overflights of France during strikes, the statement added. Air France announced on Wednesday that it would operate 45% of its short and medium-haul flights and 10% of its long-haul flights on Friday in anticipation of the strike.

The National Union of Air Traffic Controllers (SNCTA) is calling for a strike on Friday to demand wage increases and recruitment. (Written by Conor Humphries; French version Diana Mandiá, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)