Air passengers face '14,000 hours' of delays over Europe strikes

Thousands of travelers are facing long delays and cancellations as a strike by French air traffic controllers intensifies, wreaking havoc with flight schedules across Europe.

On Wednesday, the second day of the industrial action over aviation cuts, the situation was "unstable," according to European air safety body Eurocontrol.

Leading European carriers including British Airways, EasyJet and Ryanair have all reported flight cancellations and delays.

Eurocontrol earlier said the strike was expected to cause up to 14,000 hours of delays.

Ryanair said in a statement it expected to cancel 15% of its 1,600 scheduled flights on Wednesday and warned the situation was likely to deteriorate further.

"We expect that these delays will continue to build through the morning as the backlog of delayed flights rises,"it said.

"Ryanair apologizes sincerely for any delays or inconvenience caused to our customers by this unnecessary and regrettable French ATC strike."

The budget airline earlier accused air traffic controllers of "blackmailing" passengers and urged European Union officials to ban them from taking industrial action.

Also Wednesday, Brussels Airport said all flights were cancelled from 6 p.m. local time after some Belgian air traffic controllers voted to stage a walkout.

Many passengers took to Twitter to vent their frustration over the disruption.

mafleen @mafleen

Follow

Can't sleep Too busy worrying about the controllers strike. Would prefer not to spend my holiday in the Airport. #airtrafficstrike

4:21 AM - 25 Jun 2014

Airlines were advising all passengers traveling to and from European airports to check the status of their flight before departing.

Under EU law, those experiencing cancellations should be entitled to a refund or alternative booking.

Read More

French air traffic control threatens strike chaos

Hundreds of thousands of airline passengers will face widespread chaos and uncertainty over their travel plans this week as six-day French air traffic control strike is due to go ahead. Airlines have warned that the action is likely to have a “severe” impact on travel to and from France but could also affect many other services passing over the country.

With just over 24 hours to go until the strike was due to begin, none of the airlines could tell passengers for certain whether or not they will be affected because the French authorities still had not decided how many flights they will order them to cancel.

EasyJet, the second biggest airline in France operating from 14 airports in the country, said it expected to have to cancel around half of its services in and out of France.

But it added that up to 70 per cent of the 1,400 flights a day it operates across Europe and beyond pass through French airspace and could also be disrupted or delayed.

British Airways and Ryanair, similarly, said that although they were drawing up plans, they were unable to make final decisions about routes until after a meeting of the French equivalent of the Civil Aviation Authority due to take place on Monday morning.

A similar walkout last year led to the cancellation of around 1,800 flights a day across Europe including scores of services to and from the UK.

There are estimated to be around 350 direct flights between Britain and France during the planned strike period.

Members of the two biggest air traffic controllers’ unions in France have voted for a six-day strike from Tuesday in protest at budget cuts.

The action has been timed ahead of a deadline on June 30 for France to present its five-year budget plans for aviation to Brussels.

It is in preparation for the European “single sky” plan to reduce navigation costs by organising airspace by traffic flows rather than national borders.

But the two unions claim it will lead to a “forced low-cost” ethos in air traffic. British Airways, which operates 30 return flights a day between Britain and France, hopes to switch to larger aircraft on some routes to reduce any backlog. But it said it could not finalise plans until the number of cancellations ordered by France’s Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC) was clear.

“The level of disruption is likely to fluctuate in different parts of France at different parts of each day,” it explained.

“Unfortunately this industrial action is also highly likely to lead to delays on other short-haul services which have to overfly France.”

A spokeswoman for easyJet said: “EasyJet is disappointed at this unnecessary strike action which has the potential to cause considerable disruption and cancellations for passengers and airlines across Europe.

“Despite the fact that this disruption is beyond easyJet’s control we will do everything possible to minimise the inconvenience to our customers.

“As the scale of the disruption becomes clearer we will proactively provide advice for our passengers through our website, text messages and flight tracker tool.”

A Ryanair spokesman added: "We are assessing the situation and are not yet certain of the level of disruption expected, but will advise our customers once we have further information.”

Read More