Passengers flying to and from Italy, today, will see their travel plans disrupted due to another air traffic control (ATC) strike. The industrial action is expected to last at least 4 hours (13:00 till 17:00) with more than 500 flights being cancelled. Passengers will also face delays during the rest of the day when cancellations and delays will have a knock-on effect on other European flights. Airlines are doing their utmost to minimise the impact of the strike and return back to schedule as soon as possible, operate larger airplanes or help with rebookings. Some flights might be also rescheduled to avoid the strike period.
“Just days after a week of disruption in France this new strike will see hundreds of thousands of European citizens and businesses taken hostage by localized industrial action, again. There are solutions available which would limit the impact of such strikes on travellers and business, without questioning controllers’ fundamental right to strike – we just need courageous policy-makers in Europe to help implementing them, now”, said Thomas Reynaert, Managing Director of A4E.
“Travellers can unite and let out their frustration about the continuous travel disruptions supporting our petition ‘Keep Europe’s Skies open’. We cannot let these strikes continue into the holidays and the Summer break”,conclu ded Reynaert.
A4E’s petition can be signed under www.keepeuropesskiesopen.com.
During the 2010-16 period, there were 217 ATC strike days in the EU – one disrupted day every nine days. In total, there were 278 disrupted days if you take into account the days before and after an ATC strike as flights had to be cancelled in advance and accumulated delays spilt over to the next day. Since 2010 the overall impact of ATC strikes have cost €12 billion to the EU economy, associated with more than 140,000 jobs.
