French air traffic control unions lift strike notice for May holiday weekend

The largest union representing French air traffic controllers has lifted a strike notice for the May holiday weekend after coming to an agreement with managers.

Published: 23 April 2024 16:38 CEST
Updated: 24 April 2024 13:18 CEST

French air traffic control unions lift strike notice for May holiday weekend

Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

The SNCTA union, which represents around 60 percent of French air traffic controllers, had called strikes for Thursday, April 25th and for May 9th, 10th and 11th.

However after a last-minute deal with struck they lifted all strike notices, although disruption remains likely for April 25th – more details HERE.

The union had said that it would also be filing a strike notice for Thursday May 9th, Friday May 10th and Saturday May 11th.

In France May 8th and 9th are both public holidays – and many people had planned to take advantage of the rare ‘double holiday’ and extend it into a trip away.

May 8th is always a holiday, marking VE Day or the end of WWII in Europe and May 9th is the Christian holiday of Ascension, the date of which varies each year. This year it provides the unusual opportunity for workers to have two consecutive days as public holidays.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

“Due to increased costs we don’t have any financial alternative but to close our Bordeaux base in November,” the company’s commercial director Jason McGuinness said in a statement released in French.

The airline has been operating around 40 flights to and from Bordeaux.

In the statement it said the three planes and 90 staff currently based at the Bordeaux airport would be transferred to other, less costly, bases within its network.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said in March that Bordeaux airport was seeking to double its fees and warned he would shut the base rather than pay that amount.

Bordeaux-Merignac airport said it had “put limits on the financial demands” of Ryanair and would pursue its strategic objective of diversifying the airlines which use airport.

“We don’t wish to see a company which has been installed in Bordeaux for 14 years leave,” the airport told AFP.

“If it would like to work again in Bordeaux, it will be welcome,” it added.

Bordeaux-Merignac in 2023 was the eighth busiest French airport with 6.6 million passengers.

However, this figure is just 85.5 percent of pre-Covid 2019 levels whereas the average for French airports was 92.7 percent.

Bordeaux’s airport was particularly hit by the end of its flights to Paris, victim of a French government ban on any domestic flights that can be replaced by train in less than three hours.