WINDHOEK – Airlines were forced to cancel flights to and from Paris’s main airports and several cities in southern France yesterday as air traffic controllers kicked off a six-day strike.
The work stoppage comes at the height of the tourist season in a nation that attracts more foreign visitors than any other country in the world, and follows a rail protest that affected services abroad and domestically and is still continuing in some areas.
Yesterday the International Air Transport Association (IATA) issued a statement strongly condemning the strike, which it says targets vacationers at the start of the busy summer holiday season. “Unions bent on stopping progress are putting at risk the hard-earned vacations of millions of travellers, and from the public’s perspective, the timing of the strike could even be regarded as malicious. In additional to vacationers, business people undertaking important trips, and those awaiting urgent shipments will all face hassles and uncertain waits as flights are cancelled, delayed or diverted around a major portion of European airspace,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General.
One of France’s largest unions for air traffic controllers has called for a six-day strike to begin on 24 June. This would coincide with the first major travel weekend of the busy European summer holiday season. The strikes are in protest of critical reforms being planned to bring the management of Europe’s airspace into the modern era with efficiencies that would be delivered by the Single European Sky (SES).
“There are more borders in the skies over Europe than exist on land. And that comes at a great cost. In 2012, over 130 million hours of potentially productive time were wasted because of delays that could have been prevented with SES. It is indefensible that France’s air traffic controllers are now going on strike in order to perpetuate travel delays in Europe,” said Tyler.
The country’s civil aviation watchdog said around 20 percent of flights going to and from several big cities in southern France, as well as those taking off from Paris to the south, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, were cancelled.
Not all air traffic controllers are striking, but those stopping work are protesting against what they say is a lack of sufficient funding allocated for their sector, which they say is in dire need of modernisation.
They want airport fees for airlines to increase by 10 percent, companies want them to go down, and the government is caught in between.
SNCTA, the country’s biggest air traffic control union, has decided not to go on strike following last-ditch negotiations with the government but has still echoed mounting concerns that French air navigation tools are becoming dangerously obsolete.
The system used in the country to enhance radar monitoring and for separation of air traffic dates back to the 1980s, and is due to be replaced by a new system.
The tools used to control air traffic are also in need of change.
According to SNCTA, for instance, all radar screens in the Aix-en-Provence control centre in southern France were recently “urgently” changed after around 20 screens suddenly went blank over the space of 18 months.
By Staff Reporter
• Additional reporting by AFP