Travel News
Striking French Workers Disrupt Flights & Trains
Travelers to France have more to worry about than terror alerts as a series of nationwide strikes in protest of pension reform disrupted air and rail travel this Monday.
Striking workers shut down at least half of the flights out of Paris-Orly Airport and a third of flights out of Charles de Gaulle and Beauvais airports.
In addition to striking air traffic controllers, Air France’s unions were part of the strike, and plan to be off the job for the next 24 hours. Long-haul flights, however, will not be affected.
The travel delays were further exacerbated by Irish airline Ryanair’s decision to cancel 250 flights to France from the UK. The airline is also asking the European Commission to take away the right to strike from air traffic controllers in France.
Ryanair claims that air traffic controller strikes in Belgium, France and Spain this year have caused the cancellation of more than 1,600 flights this year, disrupting 2.5 million passengers. Budget airline EasyJet estimated that the recent strikes in Europe would cost it about $8 million in compensation to passengers.
Air travel was only one of the sectors of travel affected by the French strikes. Transport workers in 85 French cities are on strike, canceling or delaying rail services throughout the country. SNCF rail, which owns and operates the country’s high-speed rail network, says that at least two-thirds of its high-speed and regional trains will be canceled.
Eurostar services are not expected to be affected by the strike and should run normally. However, customers are being given the option of putting their travel on hold for up to three months.
For the most part, travel services should resume by Wednesday, though some unions are threatening to lengthen their strike into the weekend. Rail workers, for example, will be voting every morning on whether or not to continue industrial action.
This is the third time that French workers have gone on strike in the last month and a half over government plans to increase the minimum retirement age to 62 and to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.
The strikers have forced minor concessions from the French government, but President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to move the bill through parliament by the end of the month.
With both sides unwilling to back down and 61 percent of French people backing an open-ended strike, travel disruptions may continue until the end of October.
By Adriana Padilla at PeterGreenberg.com.
Related Links: Reuters, Telegraph (UK), France-24, Telegraph (UK)
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