PARIS: Hundreds of flights to and from France were cancelled on Wednesday as air traffic controllers launched a two-day strike over working conditions and the situation was due to worsen on Thursday.

The civil aviation authority had asked airlines to scrap around 40 per cent of flights, warning of “disruption across the whole country”, and it called on companies to increase cancellations to about 50 per cent on Thursday.

Flag carrier Air France warned of “very severe disruption” to its flight schedule. Although it pledged to operate “almost all” long-haul flights, medium and short-haul services would be badly affected, it said.

“Last-minute delays and cancellations can also be expected,” the airline added.

Low-cost operator Ryanair said it had been forced to cancel more than 250 flights due to the industrial action.

“It’s grossly unfair that thousands of European travellers will once again have their travel plans disrupted by the selfish actions of a tiny number of French... workers,” the Irish airline fumed.

Competitor easyJet said it had been forced to scrap 160 flights and added it was cancelling 190 on Thursday.

There were average delays of 30 minutes at the main Paris airport, Charles de Gaulle and 300 flights out of 700 were scrapped at the secondary airport of Orly.

On the whole, though, passengers had been warned well in advance and seemed to have made other plans.

“The companies have done what was needed. For the moment, there are no difficulties,” one airport source said.

“There are a few people complaining, but no large-scale discontent,” added this source, who did not wish to be named.

However, not everyone had been tipped off.

“We weren’t warned,” said frustrated tourist Audrey Trivel at the desk of Portuguese carrier TAP Portugal.

Instead of a direct flight to Madeira with her family, she was staring down the barrel of a “grand tour” of Europe, via Geneva and Frankfurt.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2015

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