Up to a third of flights canceled at Paris-Orly, several regional airports affected: air traffic will remain disrupted at least until Wednesday March 29 due to a strike by air traffic controllers against the pension reform.
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Since the beginning of the social movement, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) has been regularly forced to ask airlines to give up part of their flight program departing from and arriving at certain airports, for the adapt to the number of air traffic controllers at their post and avoid even greater disturbances.
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Such preventive reductions, in place for much of this week, will continue throughout the weekend and until at least next Wednesday, including a new day of national interprofessional mobilization scheduled for Tuesday by the inter-union.
20% of flights canceled at several airports
On Saturday, the DGAC required the cancellation of 15% of flights at Orly, the second French airport by passenger volume, and 20% at Marseille-Provence, Bordeaux-Mérignac and Lyon-Saint-Exupéry. Sunday promises to be more difficult for passengers passing through Orly, where 33% of flights will be canceled, while this proportion will remain at 20% in Lyon and Marseille.
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“For the first time since the start of the social movements linked to the pension reform”connections to Corsica, say “utility lines” in the name of territorial continuity, are concerned, deplored Air Corsica, forced to cancel three connections to the Island of Beauty on Sunday.
In Marseille, the companies will also have to cancel 20% of their program on Monday, just like at Paris-Orly on the same day. Tuesday and Wednesday, 20% of flights will be assigned to Orly, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux, the DGAC announced on Friday evening.
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Last-minute delays and cancellations “not to be ruled out”
As a result, Air France indicated that it would be able to ensure “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, which has not yet communicated on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, she 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, which specializes in short and medium-haul, for its part canceled nearly 60 flights in total from Friday to Saturday. It has not yet published its forecast for the following days.
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Beyond the airports, work stoppages by air traffic controllers also affect the Air Navigation En Route Centers (CRNA), which manage aircraft outside the take-off and landing phases and which transit through French airspace. . They therefore have repercussions on all European traffic.
Friday evening, at the start of weekend departures, many French airports were affected by significant delays: two hours from Toulouse, 1:20 in Lyon, as much on arrival in Marseille, according to the dashboard in DGAC line. Of the “significant delays”longer than 45 minutes, also affect planes transiting through the areas covered by the CRNAs of Brest and Marseille, noted for its part the pan-European air traffic monitoring body, Eurocontrol.
