Ryanair today (21 Mar) called on the French Government and European Commission to take immediate action to prevent the skies over Europe being closed yet again tomorrow (Thursday) by French ATC unions.
Ryanair regrets that it has been forced to cancel a number of flights on Thursday (22 Mar) to/from/over France. Affected customers have been notified and advised of their options by email and SMS text message to the contact details provided at the time of booking. Further cancellations are possible and delays likely as French ATC unions yet again close the skies over Europe.
Ryanair advised all customers due to travel on Thursday to check the status of their flight on the Ryanair.com website before travelling to the airport, and urged consumers to sign the A4E “Keep Europe’s Skies Open” petition, which will be presented to the European Commission when a million signatures are accrued.
Ryanair and other EU airlines have repeatedly called upon the Commission to introduce three simple measures which would alleviate the impact of these frequent ATC strikes on Europe’s citizens:
(a) require French ATC unions to engage in binding arbitration instead of strikes
(b) allow Europe’s other ATCs to operate overflights over France while their unions strike
(c) protect French overflights (under minimum service obligations) during French ATC strikes
Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said:
“Yet again, thousands of European consumers will have their travel plans disrupted by a tiny group of French ATC unions going on strike this week. As a result, we regret we’ve been forced to cancel a number of flights on Thursday, 22nd March.
All of our affected customers have been contacted and informed of their options and we advise all those travelling on Thursday to check the status of their flight on the Ryanair.com website before leaving for their airport. We again urge European consumers to sign the A4E online petition, Keep Europe’s Skies Open, (http://www.keepeuropesskiesopen.com/) to help protect Europe from repeated disruption by ATC unions. Enough is enough.”