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Oh, oh. French air traffic controllers strike

Doing the Basque Country Tour starting in Bayonne on May 10.
This morning my May 9 flight from CDG to Biarritz on EasyJet was cancelled. No reason given, but other sources suggesting the above. Waiting to hear if my flight tomorrow night from Phila. to CDG will be affected.

Posted by
8377 posts

LIZ there was a strike going on when we flew to Paris in 2015. We were told that the international flights were given priority over domestic during the strike, so it didn't impact us. We were joining an RS tour, and nobody else in the group (who must have flown in, around the same time) was even aware a strike was going on.

Posted by
2339 posts

Oh, gosh, I hope that's the case.
I've already reserved seats on a TGV to replace the flight.
Fingers crossed.

Posted by
7209 posts

French strikes have definitely curtailed our travels in that country.

Posted by
4540 posts

Last spring when my Air France flight was possibly, but not definitively, impacted by a strike, I called the airline and they allowed me to change to another partner operated flight with no charges or fees.

I don't know if the same would be true for a strike by air traffic controllers, but you could call and ask. Perhaps you could reroute to somewhere like Barcelona and take a train from there.

Posted by
10120 posts

This is too late for you LIZ, but I’m glad you got the train tixs. The following is a tip for others facing airline or controller strikes.

After being stuck in London for a week during the US air controllers strike in 1981 (with no more money and before credit cards), I wasn’t about to wait around when a strike was called for our return date from Paris. I called Delta (repeatedly while in Paris), and once they had notification of the air controllers strike for Paris, they allowed me to move my return date up by a day at no charge.

BTW, sometimes when the going gets rough, long-hauls are cancelled: my son’s Air France flight CDG to Dulles was cancelled last year.

Posted by
3938 posts

Oh no not this dread again. You’d think we would have learned our lesson last year but oh no we are flying from Rome to Paris and then from Paris to San Francisco this summer with the 2 granddaughters who were so affected by the strike last summer. Good luck and rebook if you can. We have a couple of months to watch these developments.

Posted by
1305 posts

Hi Mona --
Betty and I took a train, allegedly a fast one (Haha) from Rome to Paris.
It was 2 hours late leaving Rome and there were some interesting delays along the way but it did get us there on the same day, just a bit later than planned.

Posted by
14809 posts

I think I read somewhere that in France some group must be on strike every day. It's the law.

Posted by
3938 posts

@SharYn good to know about the “fast” train option. I always like a backup plan!

Posted by
1362 posts

Great, I head out on 21 May to Switzerland through CDG & back to SFO on 2 June out of CDG. Dealt with the Air France pilot strike in 2014, lucked out our flight was not one of the ones that was cancelled, but did not find that out until the day prior of departure. In 2016 had to deal with the rail strike. Lucked out there as well, the strike began at 1900 hours, our train was departing at 1100 hours.