The chaos is far from over in European airports. Several strikes by the staff of many airlines are foreseen in the coming weeks. This will most likely disrupt the holiday plans of thousands of travelers.
The last development is at SAS, the Scandinavian company facing financial difficulties. Despite eight months of negotiations, the pilots are on strike. They denounce the sacrifices demanded by the management, a 30% drop in their income according to them.
Flights were also cancelled the first weekend of July by the low-cost airlines Easyjet and Ryanair on flights bound for Spain as well as those departing from the Iberian country. Easyjet flight attendants are demanding that their working conditions be brought into line with the rest of their colleagues in Europe. They will be on strike on July 15, 16, 17, 29, 30 and 31.
In France, the CEO of Air France has presented her “deep and sincere apologies” after the disruption of flights in recent days, especially at Roissy where 17,000 bags are still delayed.
Employees of the Paris airports manager, the ADP Group, including firefighters, went on strike the first weekend of July to demand a pay rise. A new notice has been filed for next weekend as well.
In Portugal, Lisbon Airport registered long queues over the first weekend of July. Thousands of travelers criticized the lack of information and the short notice after the cancellation of dozens of its flights, which, according to the entity, is due to the crisis experienced by other international facilities.
Lisbon Airports justified that this crisis was caused by the “limitations” suffered by “several international airports” and in a statement released to the press recommended passengers to contact their airlines before going to the airport.
On Sunday July 3rd, the entity’s website indicated that there were about 40 flights canceled, but the Airport Authority of Portugal, ANA, has reported that only 22 of them (11 arrivals and 11 departures) had been canceled, while the other routes were canceled days ago for other causes.
These disruptions have affected both domestic and international routes, departing or arriving from locations such as Munich, Porto, Dublin, London, Malaga, Rome or Madeira.
On Saturday there were about 65 flights that were cancelled. In its statement on Sunday, ANA assured that measures have been implemented to support airlines, especially in the installation of travelers’ assistance posts to reschedule flights.
Meanwhile in Belgium, the management of Brussels Airlines has now announced the further cancellation of 675 flights during the months of July and August. The announcement came after the company had to cancel the majority of the flights during a 3-day strike action. This is the equivalent of 6% of the total number of flights scheduled for the following months and the measure was taken to meet pilots and cabin crew demands for the airline to reduce their workload.
Similar situations continue to happen across several European airports, as well as in the United States, where thousands of passengers experienced cancellations and the delay of hundreds of flights.
