IATA condemns strike after French authorities order 20 per cent of flights to be cancelled

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Written by Linda Hohnholz

Geneva – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) strongly condemned the strike action by French air traffic controllers which targets vacationers at the start of the busy summer holiday sea

Geneva – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) strongly condemned the strike action by French air traffic controllers which targets vacationers at the start of the busy summer holiday season.

Franceโ€™s civil aviation body (DGAC) asked airlines to cut flights to the country by 20 percent on Tuesday, due to a strike by air traffic controllers. The action comes after a 10-day rail protest and a strike at stores in Paris over Sunday trading.

The DGAC said that on Tuesday morning at Parisโ€™s main airports โ€“ Orly and Charles de Gaulle โ€“ one in five flights had been cancelled and that โ€œthere had not been huge changesโ€ to schedules.

โ€œUnions bent on stopping progress are putting at risk the hard-earned vacations of millions of travelers, and from the publicโ€™s perspective, the timing of the strike could even be regarded as malicious. In additional to vacationers, business people undertaking important trips, and those awaiting urgent shipments will all face hassles and uncertain waits as flights are cancelled, delayed or diverted around a major portion of European airspace,โ€ said Tony Tyler, IATAโ€™s Director General and CEO.

One of Franceโ€™s largest unions for air traffic controllers has called for a six-day strike to begin on 24 June. This would coincide with the first major travel weekend of the busy European summer holiday season. The strikes are in protest of critical reforms being planned to bring the management of Europeโ€™s airspace into the modern era with efficiencies that would be delivered by the Single European Sky (SES).

โ€œThere are more borders in the skies over Europe than exist on land. And that comes at a great cost. In 2012, over 130 million hours of potentially productive time were wasted because of delays that could have been prevented with SES. It is indefensible that Franceโ€™s air traffic controllers are now going on strike in order to perpetuate travel delays in Europe,โ€ said Tyler.

Eurocontrol estimates that the failure to implement SES resulted in 70 million minutes of delays for aircraft in 2012. That is the equivalent of 133 aircraft being grounded for an entire year. The costs of this are high:

EUR 6 billion in lost productivity by travelers spending unnecessary time on aircraft

EUR 3 billion in unnecessary operating costs
7.8 million tonnes of unnecessary carbon emissions
SES would transform the costly and inefficient patchwork of 37 civilian air traffic control organizations in Europe into a seamless and efficient air traffic management system safely accommodating growth in demand for travel and shipping. โ€œThe SES goals include improving safety, reducing delays, cutting emissions, modernizing infrastructure and creating 320,000 jobs. Our own research confirmed that it can be done without a single controller losing his or her job. Who could be against that? This strike is totally unjustified,โ€ said Tyler, referring to the IATA Blueprint report on SES implementation.

France is a member of the Single Sky Committee that agreed to SES implementation. โ€œWe expect France to keep its commitment to deliver the SES. It must not buckle under the pressure of a privileged few controllers seeking to protect themselves from the โ€˜efficiencyโ€™ that every other industry and worker is challenged to achieve. And we urge the French government to make a strong intervention to protect travelers from this malicious and unjustified strike action,โ€ said Tyler.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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