The majority union among air traffic controllers, the SNCTA, announced that it had filed a strike notice for the day of September 15, demanding wage increases.
Salary increases
The call for mobilization aims to “act the catch-up of inflation and the establishment of mandatory annual negotiations”. Denouncing “the silence of the DGAC”, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, the union “recalls that French air traffic control, like all European service providers, is governed by European performance plans which provide for compensation for inflation via a consequent adjustment of the royalty rate, and therefore of revenue”. He calls for these mechanisms “to finally be properly taken into account”.
Ulcerated airlines and passengers
Several days of strike action by air traffic controllers at the start of the year during the pension bill had led the DGAC to preventively cancel part of the airline program.
The strike movements had ulcerated the airlines which serve France or pass through its airspace, the most overflown in Europe.
The Airlines for Europe (A4E) association, which defends the interests of major carriers based on the Old Continent including Ryanair, easyJet, Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways, called on the European Commission in May to establish an “arbitration compulsory” before a strike or the “protection of overflights” of the country affected by a social movement.
In France, a bill adopted in June provides for the obligation for air traffic controllers to declare themselves strikers 48 hours in advance, as is the case at the RATP or the SNCF. “A common sense measure,” said Transport Minister Clément Beaune, according to whom the bill should arrive at the National Assembly in the fall.
