A weekend still disturbed in the air. The General Directorate of Civil Aviation has asked airlines to give up 33% of their flights on Sunday at Paris-Orly airport, and 20% on Monday, due to the strike by air traffic controllers against the pension reform .
These preventive cancellations will also concern Sunday 20% of flights to Lyon-Saint-Exupéry and Marseille-Provence. In the latter airport, the companies will also have to cancel 20% of their program on Monday. The DGAC relayed these instructions in “Notices for Air Missions” (Notam), official information channels for companies, published on one of its websites on Thursday evening.
To match flight volumes and the number of air traffic controllers at their post and avoid even greater disruption, the DGAC had already required carriers to give up 30% of their flights at Orly on Friday, then 15% SATURDAY. In addition, one in five flights will be canceled at Marseille-Provence, Bordeaux-Mérignac and Lyon-Saint-Exupéry, both Friday and Saturday.
In repercussion, Air France indicated that it would be able to provide “nearly 8 out of 10 flights between Paris-Orly and certain French airports” from Friday to Monday. Neither long-haul flights nor those departing from or arriving at Paris-Charles de Gaulle will be affected, according to the company.
All European traffic affected
However, it warned that “last minute delays and cancellations cannot be ruled out” and stressed that its customers “affected by canceled flights are notified individually”. Its sister company, the “low-cost” Transavia specializing in short and medium-haul, for its part planned to cancel nearly 60 flights in total from Friday to Saturday. It has yet to release its forecast for Sunday and Monday.
Beyond the airports, work stoppages by air traffic controllers also affect the en-route air navigation centers (CRNA) which manage aircraft outside the take-off and landing phases, and transit through French airspace. They therefore have repercussions on all European traffic.
Most major French airports are experiencing relatively contained delays, of less than half an hour on departure or arrival this Friday morning, according to the DGAC’s online dashboard.
Exceptions with delays of almost 50 minutes on departure from Toulouse-Blagnac and three-quarters of an hour on arrival in Bordeaux and Basel-Mulhouse, are however noted. “Significant delays” also affect planes transiting through the areas covered by the CRNAs of Reims and Marseille, noted for its part the pan-European air traffic monitoring body, Eurocontrol.