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Ryanair cancels 300 flights set to fly over France due to strike

The budget airline Ryanair announced on Wednesday that it had been forced to cancel more than 300 flights set to fly over French airspace on Thursday, due to strike action by air traffic controllers that was cancelled at the last-minute.

Published: 25 April 2024 08:47 CEST
Ryanair cancels 300 flights set to fly over France due to strike
An aircraft of low-cost Irish airline Ryanair is prepared pre-flight at the Berlin-Brandenburg airport in Schoenefeld near Berlin, on April 4, 2024. (Photo by David GANNON / AFP)

In a press release published on Wednesday, Ryanair announced that 300 of their flights had been cancelled due to a planned strike by French air traffic controllers (ATC).

“Even though it’s French ATC that are striking, most disrupted passengers are not flying to/from France but overfly French airspace en route to their destination (e.g., UK – Greece, Spain, Italy),” the company said.

According to Ryanair estimates, 50,000 passengers would be affected in some way. 

The main union participating in the strike announced on Wednesday morning that it had reached a deal with management and would be calling off industrial action, but the announcement came too late and many flights had already been cancelled. 

As a result, significant delays and widespread cancellations were still expected on Thursday.

READ MORE: ‘75% of flights cancelled’: Which French airports will be worst affected by Thursday’s disruption?

Why are overflights affected?

The overflights pass through French airspace on their way to another country, and they make up a significant percentage of the flights handled by French air traffic controllers on a daily basis.

During strikes by French air traffic controllers, overflights are likely to be delayed or diverted as airlines seek alternatives routes that go around France, rather than over it. Often, there are also cancellations, as is the case for Ryanair. 

Can I still get a refund due to a delay or cancellation of an overflight?

In terms of compensation, it makes little difference whether your flight is to/from France or simply over it, as EU compensation rules apply to all flights that either arrive at or depart from an airport in the EU/Schengen zone, or are operated by an EU-registered carrier.

Find full details on your rights and how to claim refunds HERE.

Are there plans to protect overflights?

Ryanair has been pushing for greater overflight protection for a long time, and they made several calls for change during the 2023 protests against pension reform when a number of air traffic control strikes were called.

READ MORE: Cancellations and compensation: How French strikes affect European flights

In their Wednesday memo, the company called again for the EU Commission to take action to protect overflights.

“French air traffic controllers are free to go on strike, that’s their right, but we should be cancelling French flights, not flights leaving Ireland, going to Italy, or flights from Germany to Spain or Scandinavia to Portugal.

“The European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen has failed for 5 years to take any action to protect overflights and the single market for air travel. We’re again calling on her to take action to protect overflights which will eliminate over 90 percent of these flight cancellations,” Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said in the memo.

The company has also released a petition to ‘‘Protect Overflights: Keep EU Skies Open’, which has over 2.1m signatures.

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Paris garbage collectors strike as city readies for Olympics

Paris garbage collectors went on strike on Tuesday, two-and-a-half months before the French capital is due to host the Summer Olympic Games.

Published: 15 May 2024 09:44 CEST
Paris garbage collectors strike as city readies for Olympics

Paris rubbish collectors had warned of possible strikes over the summer, raising the spectre of piles of trash roasting in summer heat on the streets as hordes of athletes and tourists descend on the City of Light.

ANALYSIS: How likely is strike chaos during the Paris Olympics?

Unions and City Hall differed on how many of the collectors had walked off the job on Tuesday.

Paris city hall said that 16 percent of staff, or one in six, were striking.

“Collection services were little affected today,” a City Hall official told AFP, without providing further details.

But the CGT union branch that represents garbage collectors, hailed a “strong” mobilisation effort, saying that 70-90 percent of staff, depending on the arrondissement, had walked off the job.

CGT said that some 400 striking workers had “occupied” the building housing city hall’s human resources department on Tuesday morning.

City Hall put the number at 100 and said they had left by 12 noon.

CGT had warned that walkouts would occur on several days in May and then continue from July 1st to September 8th.

Summer Olympics will run in Paris from July 26th until August 11th, and the Paralympic Games from August 28th to September 8th.

Refuse workers in the Paris region are demanding an extra €400 per month and a one-off €1,900 bonus for those working during the Olympics, when French workers traditionally take time off for the summer holidays.

The mayor’s office had previously told AFP that it would extend bonuses of between €600 and €1,900 that it had already announced for workers contributing to the Olympics effort to refuse collectors.

The mayor of Paris’s 17th arrondissement, Geoffroy Boulard, said the strike was “irresponsible”.

“To take hostage not only Parisians but also tourists and visitors is also an attack on France’s world image,” he said.

In March last year, a three-week strike by rubbish collectors against unpopular pensions reform saw more than 10,000 tonnes of waste piled in Paris streets at its height.

Images of the heaps of trash, some mounting several metres high, were seen around the world.

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