One in two flights departing from or arriving at Paris-Orly airport was canceled on Saturday afternoon due to an unplanned strike by air traffic controllers, as part of the movement against the reform retirements. “Given the observation of a certain number of strikers at the Orly air navigation organization”, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) “asked the airlines to reduce their flight program by 50 % starting at 1:00 p.m. for the day,” the administration said in a statement.
The other major airport in the Paris region, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, is not affected. The Air Navigation Route Centers (CRNA) managing aircraft already in flight over French territory, either, said the DGAC. From an airport source, these cancellations were to represent “25 arrivals and 22 departures” of aircraft at Orly, especially on domestic routes or with countries in the Schengen zone.
No minimum service
The manager of Orly, the ADP group, for its part indicated that around 77,000 passengers were initially expected on Saturday on the platform: some 40,000 on departure and 37,000 on arrival. Unlike the previous three days of mobilization against the pension reform, the administration had not implemented minimum service at Orly, which would have involved the preventive cancellation of part of the airline program, announced two days previously.
Indeed, the DGAC pointed out on Saturday, the national strike notices for the day had “not been relayed by the trade unions within the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, nor followed by a call for a strike by the from the representative organizations of air traffic controllers”.