The one nicknamed "the third Parisian airport" will be idled this Thursday. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) asked airlines to halve their flight schedule Thursday at Beauvais airport (Oise) because of a strike of controllers.
Beauvais, one of the bases in France of the low-cost airline Ryanair, is the only airport concerned by this preventive measure, according to a statement published Wednesday by the DGAC. The latter justified the measure by "a notice of national strike (...) filed by a trade union representative of air traffic controllers".
The union in question, the Usac-CGT, protests against the social protocol being negotiated with the DGAC, which according to it "endorses a desire to upset the organization of the work of people in civil aviation, while acknowledging degradation of the service rendered". It is a text "as it stands, unacceptable," said the Usac-CGT in a statement.
Unions denounce a challenge to the right to strike
This union had already been at the forefront of the protest movement against the pension reform, which had caused cancellations and delays of flights in cascade between March and May. The union also denounced the vote on 15 June in the Senate of a bill to better organize air traffic in the event of a strike.
This is a "challenge to the right to strike" and warned that "the promulgation of this law would constitute an extraordinary step backwards of this constitutional right" according to the organization. Currently, unions in air traffic control must file any strike notice five days before a movement, but strikers do not have to declare their individual participation, unlike other employees in the sector. This reform must now be considered by the National Assembly.
Read also82 destinations, nearly 5 million passengers... how Beauvais became "the 3rd Parisian airport"
The Minister Delegate for Transport, Clément Beaune, said he was in favor of such an evolution of the law after a surprise work stoppage on February 11 of air traffic controllers, in the absence of a call for a strike, which had led the DGAC to cancel in disaster one flight out of two at Paris-Orly.
Strikes by French air traffic controllers are a recurring source of anger for foreign airlines, which are often forced to bypass the country. Ryanair has launched a petition on this subject, which had collected 1.24 million signatures on Wednesday. The tenth French airport for its traffic, Beauvais, 80 km north of Paris, has welcomed 2022.4 million passengers in 6, according to the Union of French Airports (UAF), exceeding by 15.8% its 2019 level, thanks to the dynamism of low-cost airlines, including Ryanair, which bases two aircraft there.