The latest unfavorable news came from France. Airlines will have to cancel up to 20 percent of flights due to a strike at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on Saturday, the civil aviation authority said. The strike of airport workers for higher wages continues. And its Sunday continuation is not ruled out either.
At this airport, they already experienced a situation on Friday when trade unionists from the ground staff protested in front of the airport, while crowds of passengers were stuck inside.
According to France’s civil aviation authority, 17 percent of scheduled flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports between 07:00 and 14:00 were canceled on Friday due to the strike. At the same time, the Paris Airport Authority warned of possible delays at the entrances to the terminals and during check-in and security and customs checks.
The CGT trade union then called for another strike on July 9 and 10, when the summer school holidays begin in France.
High inflation forces workers to protest
Paris airport worker and CGT union representative Loris Foreman justifies the strikes as a response to high inflation. In France, it reached 6.5 percent in June, which is a record here, but is one of the lowest in the European Union. For example, in the Czech Republic, year-on-year inflation was 16 percent in May, and it is generally expected to continue to grow.
Foreman has worked at the airport for eight years. Previously, according to his words, he was comfortable with the money. Now she finds groceries at the sales. He put off repairing the roof and doesn’t have a full tank at the end of the month. “We know we’re taking passengers hostage, but we have to do something to make them hear us. This can only be done with a strike,” he emphasizes.
During covid, employees accepted lower wages to keep their jobs. Despite this, many of them lost their places. Now the airport is running at 95 percent of its pre-covid capacity and there is no one to stop their work.
“We are in a situation where we are not able to take care of passengers, where colleagues cannot even take a necessary break, which is crazy,” said airport union secretary FO Fabrice Criquet.
The government intervenes in the French dispute. But the series of strikes is to continue. “We have agreed with the various aviation sectors to cancel ten percent of flights so that the remaining ninety percent can depart,” French government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoir said.
At German airports, they rely on the help of the Turks
Similar to Paris, flight cancellations have already affected airports in London (where baggage claim also recently collapsed), Amsterdam, Rome and Frankfurt. Last week, passengers also experienced nerve-wracking moments at several airports in Germany.
The federal government wants to solve the shortage of staff, which is leading to chaos at check-in, in the short term by workers from abroad, especially those from Turkey. He sees a long-term remedy in increasing the attractiveness of the ground workers sector.
When the Ministers of Transport, Labor and Social Affairs and the Interior Volker Wissing, Hubertus Heil and Nancy Faeserová recently announced this to journalists, they did not hide their displeasure at the fact that the companies from the aviation industry did not secure enough personnel in time, although they relied on financial support from the state for a long time during the pandemic.
The check-in system is down. Some aircraft crews are also dissatisfied
And to make matters worse, a number of airports around the world, for example in London, Budapest and Sydney, reported a breakdown of the passenger check-in system on Friday. For example, a partial outage lasted about three and a half hours at the Prague airport.
The betting calendar now intersects with the busiest months of the year. Even the crews of low-cost airlines are not satisfied. Those from Ryanair and Easy Jet are on strike in Belgium, Italy and Portugal, as well as in Spain. So far, two percent of flights have been affected here.
–
