The airline Ryanair launched a petition on Monday to ask the European Commission to intervene to “protect passengers” during air raids in France, demanding minimum services and external management of flights, although without revealing the economic impact.
Today, we are launching a petition to reach one million signatures for the European Commission to intervene and try to protect freedom of movement within the European Union, so that people who do not fly to and from France […] they are not affected”, announced at a press conference in Brussels, the executive president of Ryanair, Eddie Wilson.
“Strike is allowed, but must not be allowed to undermine freedom of movement of European citizens and the Commission [Europeia] you have to step in and do something about it,” he added.
The position comes at a time when Ryanair points out that strikes in the aeronautical sector (i.e. air traffic controllers) in France have already delayed or caused the cancellation of flights of more than a million air passengers, mainly overflights on French territory. .
Claiming that there are no European regulations to protect flights over French airspace during the current strikes, the Irish low-cost airline asks the communal executive to resort to minimum service laws to safeguard overflight operations, allow other European air traffic controllers to manage flights over France, and even get French unions to commit to binding arbitration before calling strikes.
France is currently facing several strike actions called by the unions: not only in the aviation industry, but also in other — in protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms to raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64.
This situation affects aviation in the country, which has already led the French Civil Aviation Authority to ask airlines to reduce their flight hours.
Ryanair data reveals that, in 14 strike actions in the last eight weeks, passengers affected by this situation already exceed those who faced identical scenarios in 2022, with 80% of the current affected flights being overflights in France, such as to and from the United States. Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.
According to Ryanair, 350 flights to or from Portugal were affected this year, a total of 62,500 passengers with delayed or canceled tripssince French laws only protect internal flights.
Questioned by Lusa at the press conference about the financial impact of these strikes, Eddie Wilson refused to answer, stating that “it’s not really about the money”, but about “the interruption of operations”.
Besides, “from an environmental point of view, airlines fly longer routes” and using more fuel, which leads to more polluting emissions, adding an extra 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide, he said.
Eddie Wilson did not provide data on passenger compensation, when asked if these strikes are considered extraordinary circumstances, which exempts the airline from compensating under European rules.
we will have [de usar] extra fuel, we will have to pay people in certain situations and, in other situations, they are extraordinary circumstances,” he said, without specifying.
Regarding the estimates for next summer, after a high season under pressure last year also due to strikes and lack of personnel, Eddie Wilson added that the current situation “will not help because when you have an impact like this in winter, when there are they are more planes, […] summer arrives and there is no capacity for it”.
The petition now launched is titled “Protect passengers, keep EU skies open“.
Source: Observadora
