Ryanair has been forced to cancel 420 flights affecting 80,000 passengers this Friday due to European strikes.
The airline has called on the EU to take immediate action to protect overflights over French airspace on Friday while French Air Traffic Control (ATC) go on an all-out one-day strike.
All 80,000 Ryanair customers affected by the action have been notified and have been advised of their options via email or SMS.
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A spokesperson for Ryanair said in a statement: “Ryanair sincerely apologises to its customers for these unnecessary disruptions that this French ATC strike will cause them.”
Ryanair Operations Director Neal McMahon said the strike was “inexplicable” and “inexcusable”.
He said: “It is inexplicable that thousands of European citizens/visitors will have their travel plans unfairly disrupted tomorrow, (Fri 16th Sept) by yet another French ATC strike. Ryanair is once again calling for immediate EU action to prevent these ATC strikes disrupting the travel plans of thousands of European citizens/visitors.
“It is inexcusable that passengers who are not even flying to/from France are disrupted because they overfly French Airspace at a time when French laws protect French domestic flights. It is time that the EU step in and protect overflights so that European passengers are not repeatedly held to ransom by a tiny French ATC union.”
The cancelled flights will mainly affect those planning to travel between Spain, Italy, Ireland, Germany and other countries that have a flight overflying France.
Ryanair has proposed three measures that it suggests would alleviate the impact of these French ATC strikes on Europe’s citizens and visitors.
These include:
Require French ATC unions to engage in binding arbitration instead of strikes
Protect French overflights (under minimum services laws)
Allow Europe’s other ATCs to manage overflights over France while French ATC unions strike
The news comes after Irish passengers faced huge delays on Saturday after an IT issue forced Aer Lingus to cancel a number of their flights.
The systems outage caused the cancellation of 52 Aer Lingus flights in and out of Dublin Airport for destinations in Europe and the UK.
However, the airline pledged on Monday that it would be returning to a full schedule.
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