A complicated holiday start for thousands of Julyists, this weekend marking the start of the high season. Several French airports, including Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle (CDG) and Orly near Paris, are affected this weekend by new strikes to demand a rise in wages, with cancellations and possible delays at the end of the week. summer school holidays. Launched Thursday, June 30 by CDG firefighters, the social movement forced the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) to request preventive flight cancellations, while part of the runways must be closed for safety reasons.
These cancellations affect one in five flights between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. this Saturday July 2 on departure or arrival from CDG, a deterioration after one in six flights the day before and the day before, according to the new directives of administration. On Friday July 1, around a hundred aircraft movements out of 1,300 had thus been canceled at Roissy. The other major airport in the Paris region, Orly, was not affected at the time. “The movement continues among firefighters”which are “dissatisfied with management’s proposals” on their salary scale, declared in the evening to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Daniel Bertone, the general secretary of the CGT of the ADP Group, manager of the airports of Paris.
“Open” dialog
On the same day, the firefighters were joined by other employees of ADP and subcontractors as part of an inter-union and inter-professional movement for wages and working conditions, the notice of which runs all week. -end. According to Daniel Bertone, new notices have also been submitted for the weekend of Saturday July 9 and Sunday July 10, which will mark the start of the summer school holidays and during which there is traditionally a peak in attendance. The negotiations on Friday, which did not succeed, concerned wages within the Groupe ADP, in majority controlled by the State.
According to the CGT trade unionist, employees are demanding a 6% revaluation with retroactive effect from January 1, to compensate for inflation; management proposed 4% on July 1, he said, adding that this increase did not therefore make up for the 5% drop accepted by employees as part of the cost reduction plan decided by ADP in the face of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020-2021. The management did not confirm the figures of the CGT, confining itself to conceding that “the negotiations have not been successful, but the social dialogue remains open”.
three hours early
In addition to the cancellations, the strike, affecting in particular the screening and handling inspection stations, resulted in “a few delays” Friday according to ADP. Like the two previous days, Air France announced the cancellation of approximately 10% of its short and medium-haul flights this Saturday July 2. Long-haul flights will not be affected. At the call of an inter-union FO-CGT-CFE-CGC, a strike notice was also filed from Friday July 1 to Monday July 3 in Marseille-Provence, but its management did not foresee either cancellation or delay, personnel having been requisitioned by prefectoral decree.
In Ile-de-France airports, ADP invites passengers to arrive “three hours before [l’embarquement] for an international flight » et “two hours for a domestic or European flight”. The government will “continue to exchange with the unions to find a way out of the crisis”assured Friday July 1 Olivia Grégoire, spokesperson for the government. The idea that our compatriots cannot go on vacation is not viable”.
hard summer
Thursday, associations of tour operators had still estimated that the disturbances in the airports « [faisaient] fear the worst for the holidays and trips of the French men and women”. Eurocontrol, the body for monitoring air traffic on the Old Continent, estimates that it could return in August to up to 95% of its 2019 level, before the health crisis which divided attendance by three in 2020. However, the summer promises to be very difficult for the sector, which is still struggling to regain its operational efficiency after the pandemic.