PARIS, 3rd July, 2025 (WAM) – A walkout by French air traffic controllers to protest against staff shortages and ageing equipment forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights on Thursday, just as the summer season gets under way, Reuters reported.
The strike impacted operations at airports across the country, including Paris' Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, one of Europe's busiest hubs, and is due to run into a second day on Friday.
Budget airline Ryanair (RYA.I) said it had cancelled 468 flights and expected the number to keep rising.
France's civil aviation agency DGAC asked airlines to cut one in four flights in and out of Paris airports and almost half of flights out of the capital on Friday. Elsewhere, airlines were asked to reduce flights by 30%-50%, with the south hit particularly hard.
Air France (AIRF.PA), France's largest airline, said it had adapted its flight schedule, but that it was maintaining its full long-haul flight schedule.
France's second-largest air traffic controllers' union, UNSA-ICNA, said its members were striking over persistent understaffing, outdated equipment and a toxic management culture. Another union, USAC-CGT, said the DGAC had failed to comprehend the frustration felt by controllers.
"The DGAC is failing to modernise the tools that are essential to air traffic controllers, even though it continues to promise that all necessary resources are being made available," UNSA-ICNA said in a statement.
On Friday, the situation is expected to become even more tense at Paris airports and Beauvais, where the DGAC has ordered a 40% reduction in the number of flights.