Air travelers in France suffer another strike this week
February 11, 2008
They may help the planes keep moving in and out of France, but many air traffic controllers in Paris don’t want to move themselves. This is the dispute behind the latest Paris air traffic controllers’ action this week. The Paris airport workers a began a pre-planned five-day strike on Monday, causing flight delays, cancellations, and the usual round of human misery, accusations and disgruntlement that are part and parcel of recurring transport strikes in France.
About half of flights at Orly, Paris’ southern airport were canceled, France’s civil aviation authority said. They specified that only flights inside France were called off entirely. International flights and trips to France’s overseas territories still took off, with delays of about one hour. Such delays are usual in France, so many international travelers in and out of Paris on Monday probably did not notice much of a difference.
Things were slightly better for travelers at Charles de Gaulle airport, the bigger and busier of the two Paris airports and the main entry point into France. Travelers here faced delays but no cancellations. This, however, seems due to change tomorrow.
Both airports are owned and operated by Aeroports de Paris.
Air traffic controllers at Charles de Gaulle, also known as Roissy, were probably more sanguine as the issue over which the strike was called affects them less, at least right now, than the workers at Orly. The dispute is over a plan to move Orly controllers to Roissy before regrouping all Paris air traffic controllers on one site near Paris in 2015.
The CGT union, which represents a majority of air traffic controllers in the Paris airports, plans to continue the strike through Friday, saying that up to 50 percent of flights could be cancelled between Monday and Friday at Orly airport while 20-40 percent could be cancelled between Tuesday and Wednesday at Roissy. The more moderate CFDT union withdrew plans for similar
action after talks with the DGAC.
“The conflict is really about security, from moving Orly to Roissy before doing better afterwards,” said Philippe Lohat, national secretary of the CGT’s air traffic branch. “The air control authorities are trying to change the way air traffic control works but no-one believes in it. The biggest ever European study invalidates it,” said Jean-Paul Armango, a member of CGT’s air traffic branch.
The sentiment does not extend to controllers all over France. For its part, the SNCTA, majority trade union of the controllers at the national level in France, did not join the movement and supports “the necessary reorganization of air control in Paris area”. The trade union also considers “that the call to block the air traffic during school holidays for the specified reasons is a disproportionate and incomprehensible action”. The DGAC says it’s ready to discuss the methods of the reorganization and its practical consequences for Paris controllers and travelers in France.
The CGT denounced in particular the methods of reorganization of air traffic controllers in Paris area over the next seven years, which would see the eventual regrouping of all Orly, Roissy and Athis-Mons controllers at the latter site, in Essonne, a suburb of Paris. The CGT took particular umbrage over the conditions under which the Civil Aviation Authority of France wishes to test this regrouping during off-peak traffic periods.
In an official statement diffused Monday, the national Federation of Merchant Aviation (FNAM, principal employers’ organization of the air sector) declared that this strike generates “intolerable nuisances for the customers of the airline companies whose voyages are delayed or even cancelled”. FNAM considers this conflict “disproportionate, with regard to the consequences for customers, the airlines’ business and employment, in particular for those based with Orly”, and called for the resumption of dialogue between the parties.
This strike is only the latest in a series of industrial actions to hit Paris air traffic.
In October, Air France cabin crew went on strike for five days over pay and conditions, stranding thousands of travelers during a French public holiday and school holidays in France. In December and January, more strikes by Air France ground crew forced some flights to be cancelled.
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