Ryanair is calling on the EU to stop air traffic controllers from striking in light of today’s strikes in France.
The airline says that ATC workers should not have the “right to strike” and if they do they should be sacked.
It also wants Europe’s national ATC services to be deregulated to allow non-strikers to carry on working.
The budget carrier said also that there should be EU reform on passenger rights legislation to say airlines will no longer have the “right of care” obligations to sort out stranded passengers.
France will be hit by nationwide strikes and marches disrupting travel services today. France has been debilitated by a series of strikes in protest against pension reforms that would raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.
Ryanair has cancelled 200 flights from across the UK and Ireland to France due to operate. It says that so far this year it has been forced to cancel 2,000 flights and delay more than 12,000 flights as a result of Belgian, French and Spanish ATC strikes.
Said Ryanair head of communication Stephen McNamara: “European governments bungled and failed to keep European skies open in April and May after a volcano thousands of miles from Europe erupted and now they are once again failing to keep Europe’s skies open as passengers and airlines face yet more travel disruption due to strikes.
"We once again call on the EU to remove the ‘right to strike’ for ATC as it is for other essential services like the police and fire services. Striking ATC controllers don’t care about consumers, they don’t care about passengers and they repeatedly strike because they know they can shut down Europe’s skies and hold EU Governments and passengers to ransom.
"The EU Commission must act now to end this ATC chaos.”
by Dinah Hatch
