Ryanair forced to cancel more than 400 flights due to French air traffic control strike

Reuters

Ryanair said it was forced to cancel more than 400 flights, disrupting travel for more than 70,000 passengers, due to a nationwide air traffic controller strike in France on Friday.

The disruption comes at the start of Europe's summer holidays, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

A total of 16 flights have been grounded between Dublin and the French cities of Paris, Nantes and Nice, as well as Murcia in Spain on Thursday.

The French civil aviation agency DGAC on Wednesday asked multiple carriers to reduce flights at Paris airports by 40 per cent on July 4th due to the planned strike.

"In addition to flights to/from France being cancelled, this strike will also affect all French overflights," Ryanair said in a statement on Thursday.

Passengers overflying French airspace from the United Kingdom to Greece and Spain to Ireland would also be affected, the Dublin-based carrier said.

Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary called on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to take urgent action to reform European Union air traffic controllers' services.

"Once again European families are held to ransom by French air traffic controllers going on strike," Mr O'Leary said. "It makes no sense and is abundantly unfair on EU passengers and families going on holidays."

He said Ryanair had cancelled 468 flights and expected the number to keep rising.