Almost 20 flights have been cancelled in Belgium on Friday due to the air traffic controllers' strike in France.
At Charleroi Airport (BSCA), 12 Ryanair flights, mainly to France, and one Air Corsica flight are affected. In Zaventem, at Brussels Airport, four flights were also canceled, a spokesperson confirmed. Additionally, at Brussels Airport, delays of 15 to 20 minutes are expected on other flights, the spokesperson added.
Flights in Europe are disrupted due to the two day industrial action in France. The strike was initiated by two minority French trade unions who are demanding better working conditions and more staff. Hundreds of thousands of people were already affected on Thursday in France and the rest of Europe.
A thousand flights cancelled
Overall, around 1,000 flights were cancelled on Friday, either departing from or arriving in France, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, compared with 933 on Thursday.
"We must realise that yesterday and today, 272 people in our country are going to impact the well-being of more than 500,000 people. This is unacceptable," said Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot on CNews on Friday morning.
Speaking to France Inter radio on Friday, the chair of the Selectour travel agency group, Laurent Abitbol, called the situation "a disaste." Adding: "I have many customers who are stranded around the world [...] This will be a lot of money lost for our agents."
'Worst delays in Europe'
On Thursday, French Prime Minister François Bayrou called the strike "shocking" and accused the strikers of "holding the French people hostage" on the day when "everyone is going on holiday."
The effects of the strike are being felt beyond national borders, with the main European airline association, Airlines for Europe (A4E), estimating that 1,500 flights would be cancelled in Europe on Thursday and Friday, "affecting almost 300,000 passengers."
"This strike is intolerable. French air traffic control is already responsible for some of the worst delays in Europe, and now the actions of a minority of French air traffic controllers are going to disrupt the holiday plans of thousands of people in France and Europe," said A4E Director General Ourania Georgoutsakou.
According to the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC), the strike rate stood at 26.2% on Thursday, with 272 controllers taking part in the action out of a thousand staff on duty.
The second largest air traffic controllers' union, Unsa-Icna, launched the strike to demand better working conditions and more staff. It was joined by the third largest union in the profession, Usac-CGT (16%).
'Recreational strikes'
On Thursday, flights that did take off experienced significant delays, particularly in Nice and Marseille. A4E estimated that delays in Europe on Thursday totalled "almost 500,000 minutes" across nearly 33,000 commercial flights, with many aircraft flying through French airspace without necessarily landing in the country.
Europe's leading airline, Ryanair, announced on Thursday that it had been forced to cancel 400 flights, affecting 70,000 passengers. Its boss, Michael O'Leary, blamed the situation on "a small number of French air traffic controllers participating in recreational strikes" and urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to reform air traffic control in Europe or resign.
Air France confirmed that it had been "forced to adjust its flight schedule," without specifying the number of cancellations, but stressed that all long-haul flights would ‘go ahead’ on Thursday and Friday.
"The strike that was one too many" in a context of "problematic overall poor performance of French air navigation, particularly penalising airlines based in France," denounced the National Federation of Civil Aviation on Friday.
A controversial reform is underway to establish a check-in system for air traffic controllers when they start their shifts, following a "serious incident" at Bordeaux airport in late 2022, when two planes nearly collided. An investigation blamed the incident on poor organisation of the air traffic controllers' work, outside the legal framework and without regard for the duty roster.
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This article was updated at 11:04 to include information on cancelled flights in Belgium.
