Bad surprise this Saturday for many travelers to Orly. One in two flights departing from or arriving at the Ile-de-France airport was canceled this afternoon due to unplanned individual strikes by air traffic controllers. A mobilization against the pension reform, when the unions had not called for stopping work.
“Given the observation of a certain number of strikers at the Orly air navigation organization”, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) “asked the airlines to reduce their flight program by 50 % starting at 1 p.m. for the day,” the administration said in a statement.
The other major airport in the Paris region, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, is not affected. The Air Navigation Route Centers (CRNA) managing aircraft already in flight over French territory, either, said the DGAC.
25 arrivals and 22 departures concerned
From an airport source, these cancellations were to represent “25 arrivals and 22 departures” of aircraft at Orly, especially on domestic routes or with countries in the Schengen zone, the heart of the activity of the platform which also welcomes long- couriers, but especially for overseas links.
The manager of Orly, the ADP group, for its part indicated that around 77,000 passengers were initially expected on Saturday on the platform: some 40,000 on departure and 37,000 on arrival, for a total of 479 passenger movements. had planned. The DGAC invited “passengers who can do so to postpone their trip and to inquire with their airline to find out the status of their flight”.
Unlike the previous three days of mobilization against the pension reform, the administration had not implemented minimum service at Orly, which would have involved the preventive cancellation of part of the airline program, announced two days previously.
These “abatements” requested from the companies, it is up to them to break them down in their programs, had represented 20% of the movements of aircraft departing from or arriving at the platform during these three days of strike.
The move took passengers by surprise
Indeed, underlined the DGAC, the national strike notices for Saturday had “not been relayed by the trade union organizations within the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, nor followed by a call for a strike from the representative organizations of air traffic controllers”. This element was confirmed to AFP by a national secretary of the majority union within the air traffic controllers, the SNCTA, which, he recalled, “does not call for a strike as part of the pension reform “.
In fact, “no DGAC union relayed the national notice” for Saturday, insisted this official on condition of anonymity, attributing the disruptions of the day to “individual actions of people who declared themselves strikers”. This movement seems to have taken passengers by surprise, many of whom challenged the companies and the ADP group on social networks, on this day of departure on winter vacation.
“Why didn’t you warn your customers of the major disruptions in air traffic departing from Orly (…) Storing families on planes with 3-hour delays… Seriously? asked a user on Twitter.
A frustration also relayed on the social network by an airline flight dispatcher, faced with cascading cancellations and delays: “the last two Tuesdays (lighter program) it was minimum service put in place… And there a Saturday departure on vacation…. NADA, no communication, no minimum service set up, no request for prior reduction… Incomprehensible”.
Toulouse-Blagnac airport, for its part, indicated that it had to cease its operations from 8 p.m. this Saturday evening, promising a “gradual resumption from Sunday 8 a.m.”. At least three outgoing flights have been cancelled, to Lisbon, Madrid and Lyon. The Air Navigation En Route Center (CRNA) covering Marseille, Nice and Corsica (south) also saw its operations disrupted, but without serious consequences for traffic, which was diverted via a neighboring area, according to the DGAC.