Advertisement

Passengers in Switzerland face flight disruption amid French air traffic strikes

Sandra Sparrowhawk
Sandra Sparrowhawk - [email protected]
Passengers in Switzerland face flight disruption amid French air traffic strikes
Zurich Airport, Switzerland. Photo by Fabian Joy on Unsplash

Air passengers in Switzerland have been warned they may see flight cancellations and delays on Tuesday as strike action in France continues.

Advertisement

After a break of several weeks, unions have called for a day of strikes and demos on Tuesday, June 6th, as they continue to protest over French pension reform.

The latest day of action has been called ahead of an attempt in parliament on Thursday to have the pension reform bill - which has already been signed into law - cancelled.

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) says that strikes by air traffic control staff will disrupt some of their services. 

“France's civil aviation authority expects a major impact on flights that take off or land in France. But overflights are also affected - i.e., those flights that cross French airspace to get to Spain, Portugal or the USA, for example. Long delays are to be expected,” SWISS said in a statement on Monday according to a report by Swiss news site 20min.

"Detours south or north of France will therefore be necessary in some cases, which in turn will result in further delays."

The airline added that the strike is also having a 'significant' impact on Swiss flight operations.

"Swiss expects delays on numerous flights, and there may be occasional cancellations," said a spokesperson.

Advertisement

Ahead of Tuesday, SWISS said it had to cancel a return flight between Geneva and Nice, with "around 120 passengers are affected". The airline said alternative travel is being sought. 

Oliver Buchhofer, Head of Operations at Swiss, reportedly said: "We regret that our passengers are inconvenienced.

"Our employees have been working intensively for a few days to keep our flight schedule as stable as possible. Our top priority is to avoid cancellations, and we also want to operate our flights as punctually as possible, which unfortunately will not always be possible."

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also