Air visitors management strike at Paris-Orly, as much as 70% of flights canceled | EUROtoday

Published on : 05/25/2024 – 09:05Modified : 05/25/2024 – 11:22

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Complicated weekend to plan for Paris-Orly passengers. Up to 70% of flights are anticipated to be canceled on Saturday May 25 and Sunday May 26 at Paris airport. These disruptions comply with a name for a strike by an air visitors controllers union, a month after a primary protest which led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights.

Unsa-Icna, the second consultant union of air visitors controllers (17% within the final skilled elections), requires “adequate staffing”, judging that the settlement signed on the finish of April between the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) and the primary union of controllers, the SNCTA (60% of the votes), doesn’t assure them. The union fears a state of affairs of “understaffing” to come back by 2027.

Following this name for strike, the DGAC requested airline operators on Friday to scale back their industrial flight schedule by 70%, first for Saturday “from 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. GMT” Paris-Orly airport, earlier than extending this request a couple of hours later additionally to Sunday, in line with “notices for air missions” (Notam) printed by the DGAC.

Flights to abroad maintained

Flights to abroad territories, that are quite a few at Orly, ought to be spared within the title of “territorial continuity”. For the remaining, nonetheless, passengers may discover themselves stranded on the bottom or pressured to vary their journey.

Air visitors had already been severely disrupted on April 25, through the college holidays, in any respect French airports and not directly in Europe, as a consequence of a French air visitors management strike. An settlement was reached on the final minute with the SNCTA, however too late to keep away from hundreds of cancellations.

The controllers had been protesting towards the measures accompanying an overhaul of French air visitors management, particularly wage provisions. They demanded, amongst different issues, a 25% enhance in salaries unfold over 5 years. If the settlement reached was not formally detailed, in line with Les Échos, the controllers had obtained wage will increase from 226 euros to 1,001 euros per 30 days.

An alert to denounce “understaffing” in 2027

On Friday, the federal government regretted this new strike. “I deplore the behavior of some agents at the local level, who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a majority agreement and make passengers pay the price. I call on their responsibility,” reacted the Minister for Transport, Patrice Vergriete, from AFP.

But for Unsa-Icna, this wage settlement doesn’t resolve the query of “understaffing” which is looming at Orly, in line with it, by 2027. “Our managers persist, for Orly, in stinginess and apothecary calculations which will quickly reduce teams to understaffing,” the union said in a leaflet.

At the same time as this mobilization, the Usac-CGT filed a strike notice from May 23 to 30 to specifically protest against the weakening of the “territorial community” deliberate, in line with the union, by the air visitors management reform.

With AFP