Thousands of passengers hit by French air traffic control strikes

Tens of thousands of passengers person been deed by a French aerial postulation power onslaught that has cancelled flights successful France connected Thursday and Friday and had a knock-on effect elsewhere successful Europe.

Budget hose Ryanair said it had been forced to cancel much than 170 flights and the vacation plans of much than 30,000 passengers had been disrupted.

Two French unions were staging the two-day onslaught implicit moving conditions, starring to a 4th of flights being cancelled astatine the main airports successful Paris and fractional of flights astatine Nice airport.

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot condemned arsenic unacceptable some the unions' demands and their determination to spell connected onslaught astatine specified an important clip for radical going connected holiday.

Ryanair said the onslaught had affected not lone its flights to and from France, but besides craft flying implicit French airspace to destinations including the UK, Ireland, Spain and Greece.

Its main executive, Michael O'Leary, accused the aerial postulation controllers of "holding European families to ransom".

"It makes nary consciousness and is abundantly unfair connected EU passengers going connected holidays," helium complained, calling connected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to instrumentality "urgent action" to guarantee minimum work levels during strikes and to support flights going done French airspace from home concern action.

France's civilian aviation authority, DGAC, asked airlines to trim formation schedules astatine respective airports crossed the country.

Disruption is expected to worsen astatine French airports connected Friday, with 40% less flights from the Paris airports astatine Charles de Gaulle, Orla and Beauvais.

The onslaught was called by the UNSA-ICNA union, which cited staffing shortages, absorption issues and the planned instauration of a arguable clock-in strategy for controllers among its concerns. Talks with the DGAC earlier this week failed to resoluteness the dispute.

Airlines for Europe (A4E), the continent's starring aviation body, described the onslaught arsenic "intolerable", informing that it would severely disrupt question plans astatine the tallness of the vacation season.

EasyJet, different low-cost bearer affected by the disruption, expressed "deep disappointment" and urged a resolution.

Ryanair said connected Wednesday it besides had been deed by the caller struggle successful the Middle East and had cancelled much than 800 flights past month.

Despite the cancellations, the hose said it inactive operated much than 109,000 flights successful June, indicating that less than 1% of flights were affected.