The General Directorate of Civil Aviation requested airlines to cancel all their scheduled flights for this Thursday at three airports, one of them being Paris-Beauvais, the tenth busiest in France and the main hub for Ryanair in the country. The other two affected airports are Brest (BES), in the center-east, and Carcassonne (CCF), in the southeast.
Originally it was expected that the strike would only affect half of the flights, but eventually, the organization proceeded with the total cancellation given the level of adherence to the measure recorded at these three airports by the air traffic controllers in demand, among other issues, for the reform of the French pension system.
Yesterday Ryanair had advanced that they were forced to cancel approximately 130 flights to and from France because of the strike (which, they emphasized, is the 60th undertaken by the controllers of that country so far this year). Considering the total effect announced later, that number will end up being significantly higher.
«All affected passengers have been notified by email and SMS with all the information they need to change their flight or request a refund. We recommend all passengers traveling to/from France to check the Ryanair app/website for the most up-to-date information about their flight«, they added, also expressing apologies for the inconvenience.
At the Paris-Beauvais airport there were about 100 scheduled flights between arrivals and departures this Thursday, all of which were cancelled. At the Brest airport, the cancelled flights total 40, and at Carcassonne, 10.
Petition to protect overflights
Ryanair maintains an open petition for the French government to not only protect minimum domestic flight services during strikes but also ensure overflights of French airspace between third countries that make up the European single market.
The company detailed that due to the strikes of air traffic controllers in France, more than 4,000 flights have had to be cancelled so far in 2023, most of them being overflights.
More than 1.2 million people have signed the petition.
