- ATC on strike for 14th time this year
- Smaller impact than previous strikes
At least one flight to Spain from Ireland has been cancelled as a result of the 14th French Air Traffic Control strike this year
Ryanair cancelled 22 flights on Wednesday evening (Sep 14) including Dublin-Murcia FR7094@17:40 and 72 flights on Thursday (Sep 15) as a result, with further delays likely. Ryanair called upon the EU Commission to introduce simple measures, which would alleviate the impact of these frequent ATC strikes on Europe’s citizens as follows:
- require ATC unions to engage in binding arbitration instead of strikes
- allow Europe’s other ATCs to operate overflights while unions strike
- protect overflights (under minimum service obligations) during ATC strikes
- allow airlines to recover their EU 261 expenses from striking ATC providers
Ryanair sincerely apologised to all customers disrupted by these unjustified strikes, all of whom have been contacted by email and SMS text message and advised of their options of a full refund, rebooking on to the next available flight, or rebooking onto an alternative route.
Ryanair advised customers travelling tonight and tomorrow to check the status of their flight on the Ryanair.com website before travelling to the airport, and urged all customers to sign its “keep Europe’s Skies Open petition which will be presented to the European Commission when one million signatures are accrued.
Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said: “It’s reprehensible that Europe’s consumers repeatedly have their holiday and travel plans disrupted or cancelled by the selfish actions of ATC unions, who use strikes as a first weapon rather than a last resort. This French ATC strike will impact hundreds of thousands of European consumers and throw their travel plans into chaos once more. It’s high time that the European Commission takes action to prevent these repeated ATC strikes from continuously disrupting the travel plans of millions of Europe’s citizens and their families.”
