French ATC Strike Cancels Hundreds of Flights Nationwide

At Beauvais Airport, a base for low-cost carriers, two flights to Gdańsk and one to Poznań were also cancelled. Across the board, 25 per cent of flights were cancelled at Paris airports on Thursday, a figure that had reached 40 per cent by Friday morning.

Southern France Sees Major Disruptions
The strike hit hard in southern France. At Nice, France's third busiest airport, half of all flights were cancelled. Some 30% of flights were also grounded in Marseille and Lyon. The strike was timed for the beginning of European summer vacations, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

The airline lobby group Airlines for Europe has warned that over 1,500 flights could be cancelled over the two days, which would impact almost 300,000 passengers.

Unions Decry Understaffing and Outdated Gear
The stoppage was called by France's second biggest air traffic controllers' union, UNSA-ICNA, which said it wanted to highlight staff shortages, ageing technology and a poisonous work culture. One fellow union, USAC-CGT, slammed the national aviation authority, DGAC, for turning a blind eye to simmering staff frustration.

UNSA-ICNA claims that DGAC has failed time and again to modernise essential equipment, despite having the necessary financial resources. Similar complaints have been voiced by U.S. air traffic controllers, who say they are working with outdated equipment and are short-staffed.

French Minister for Transport Philippe Tabarot dismissed the unions' demands as unacceptable. In the meantime, carriers are saying, French air traffic control continues to be a weak link in Europe's otherwise efficient air traffic control system, with some of the continent's most protracted delays so far this year.