canceled flights, lost luggage… and new notice from July 8 to 10

About 150 flights out of 1,300 were canceled this Saturday at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, the French airport most affected by a social conflict over wages and working conditions within Groupe ADP, majority controlled by the State, which may also affect the start of the summer holidays, in a week.

And a computer failure at the level of registration and baggage tracking, which occurred late yesterday afternoon, amplified the disturbances. Concretely, half of the passengers passing through Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle yesterday left without their suitcases.

“The loss of luggage yesterday is a technical failure which has not been corrected since there are no more maintainers. You can’t find staff at the price you want to pay people. So there is a strike plus a breakdown. Baggage, there is a lot of it that is lost”, testified Emmanuel Duchemin-Humbert, Force Ouvrière representative of Aéroports de Paris this morning on BFM TV.

Until 2 p.m.

The firefighters of the first French airport have been on strike since Thursday, forcing the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) to request preventive flight cancellations: part of the runways have been closed for security reasons.
These cancellations affected one flight in five between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. this Saturday on departure or arrival, a deterioration after one flight in six the day before and the day before.

Access to the airport was not hindered, as on Friday, by a union procession, but travelers must however reckon with the closure of the RER for work.

The other major airport in the Paris region, Orly, is not affected by the movement which associates other employees of ADP and subcontractors in an inter-union and inter-professional movement for wages and working conditions.

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New notice from July 8 to 10

If the firefighters lifted their notice this Saturday for the rest of the weekend, which bodes well for a Sunday without disruption, on the other hand, they issued a new strike notice from Friday July 8 at 5 a.m. to Sunday 10 July at midnight, for the weekend of the start of the summer school holidays, which traditionally sees a peak in attendance at airports, in addition to stations and roads.

The government will “continue to exchange with the unions to find a way out of the crisis”, assured Friday Olivia Grégoire, spokesperson for the government. “The idea that our compatriots cannot go on vacation is not viable,” she added.
The day before, associations of tour operators had estimated that the disruptions at airports in recent weeks “raise fears of the worst for the holidays and travel of French men and women”.

The summer promises to be very difficult for the sector, which is struggling to regain its operational efficiency after the pandemic and is experiencing many social unrest, within companies and airport facilities.

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