The French authorities had predicted that the air controllers strike would not cause as much chaos as people feared, however, air passengers stranded in airports would disagree.
Delayed and cancelled flights have caused thousands of would be travellers to sleep on the floor of Spanish, Portuguese and French airports, some face being grounded for a week as they wait for their flights to be rescheduled.
To add to the turmoil, flights are being cancelled with no prior warning and families are left frustrated with the lack of information they are being given. To add to the confusion, airport staff are unwilling, or unable to give out news on scheduled flights without any guarantees that the flight would actually take off.
During the strike, which is expected to last until at least Monday, many airlines have had to provide accommodation for stranded passengers, amid angry holidaymakers, some of whom have to deal with small children in the midst of the chaos.
French airline authorities have blamed striking staff for holding them to ransom and have asked staff from other countries to manage French airspace during the crisis, and have asked foreign flights to be grounded rather than take up air space.
To add to the problem, Belgian air traffic controllers also went on strike on Tuesday.
Over the first two days of the strike, EasyJet has so far cancelled over 300 flight,Ryanair250 flights and British Airways over 30.
Marketing chief of Ryanair, Kenny Jacobs, said EU governments had to step in and stop French air traffic controllers ‘holding people to ransom’ with their regular walk-outs: ‘It’s a disgrace,’ he said. ‘The French need to sort this out. Ronald Reagan had the right idea when he broke the air traffic controllers’ strike in the USA by sending in the military to run it.
‘Strike action by air traffic controllers should be made illegal. And if they do go on strike, neighbouring EU countries should be able to operate the airspace over France to keep planes flying.’
A spokesman from Easyjet said: ‘We have booked around 2,800 hotel rooms to date and some passengers will also have booked their own accommodation and will claim it back from us.
‘We are advising passengers on cancelled flights to either claim a refund or re-book after the strike period has finished.’
UK airport queues were less affected as airlines had ‘pre-cancelled’ most of the affected flights and warned passengers in good time to stop them from making their journey to the airport.
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