French air traffic controllers are set to go on strike on May 1st as part of ongoing protests over the proposed increase of the pension age from 62 to 64. This is likely to cause significant disruption to flights departing from Paris’ Orly, Charles de Gaulle, and Beauvais, as well as airports in Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Nice and others, with Ryanair alone cancelling over 220 flights to accommodate almost 40,000 passengers. The strike is also expected to affect flights operated by other airlines and may disrupt air traffic in French airspace, even for flights traveling to other countries.
If you are affected by this disruption, it is important to keep in touch with your airline and regularly check the Dublin Airport Live Arrivals and Departures pages. Under EU Regulation 261, airlines must offer passengers affected by cancellations a full refund or a rerouting to the next available flight. If passengers opt for a refund, the airline’s responsibility ends there. If passengers ask for rerouting, the airline must provide care and assistance until the passengers can reach their destination.
Care and assistance include provisions for meals, refreshments, hotel accommodation, and transportation between hotels and airports. If the airline fails to provide the necessary care and assistance, passengers can make their own arrangements, keeping in mind to retain all receipts since they will need them to claim back reasonable expenses, which will be defined by aviation regulators across EU. Passengers should send copies of all receipts to the airlines, along with booking references, passenger names, and original and new flight details. If they don’t receive refund or reimbursements within a reasonable time frame, they can lodge a complaint with the Commission for Aviation Regulation.
Delaying over five hours can compel airlines to offer travelers the option to continue their journey or a refund. While travel insurance is unlikely to cover such disruptions, compensation outside of reasonable expenses is also improbable. It is vital for passengers to remember not to ask for compensation for reimbursement requests, as it is entirely unrelated to their entitlements set out in EC Regulation 261/ 2004. Any additional queries or concerns can be directed to flightrights.ie or the Commission for Aviation Regulation.
