It’s a real advertisement for the train. After one strike at Paris airports which led to hundreds of flight cancellations and postponements at the start of the summer, travelers are likely to face further disruption on the eve of the July 14th.
A strike at the call of a minority union of hostesses and stewards of the low-cost company transavia started Wednesday in France, until the end of the weekend. Otherwise, Lufthansa announced the elimination of 2,000 additional flights this summer, due to a lack of personnel.
130 declared strikers
“For the moment, we do not yet know how many flights will be maintained,” said a spokesperson for this subsidiary of Air France. According to the SNPNC, the union calling for the strike, 27 flights have already been canceled for Wednesday. “On July 11, we were already at 130 declared strikers, including 100 flight attendants” for the day on Wednesday, said Nicolas Bessalam, SNPNC union representative at Transavia.
An agreement signed with three of the four trade unions provides for “improvement of working conditions on tiring rotations and exceptional measures of purchasing power”, said a spokesperson. But the SNPNC is demanding a general and lasting wage increase now, which the company refuses to negotiate before the start of 2023 because it says it is constrained by state-guaranteed loans (PGE).
Third mobilization
A strike movement must also take place on Wednesday at the airport of Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle at the call of several unions (CGT, SUD-Aérien, CFTC, Unsa, Usapie, FMPS-i) representing ground staff working for subcontractors.
This is the third mobilization of this kind after those of June 9 and July 1, but according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC), it should not cause major disruption.
2,000 flights canceled at Lufthansa
The German airline group Lufthansa also announced on Wednesday the elimination of 2,000 additional flights this summer, bringing the number of cancellations to more than 7% of flights in July and August from and to Frankfurt and Munich.
This is the fourth wave of cancellations announced by the group, of which 7% of the initial plan of 80,000 flights concerning these two airports this summer is now canceled. The objective is to “relieve the system”, indicated the spokesperson, while the group is penalized by the heavy shortages of labor from which the entire aviation sector suffers.
The group stresses, however, that it “tries to exclude connections to classic holiday destinations”. It offers alternative flights as much as possible, provided that “there are several connections during the day” for the same destination”.