The main French air traffic controllers’ union pledged on Tuesday September 12 not to call a strike between now and September 2024, at the end of the sequence of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, one of its officials announced , confirming the announcements of the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune.
During the day, two French air traffic controller unions, including the majority organization SNCTA, announced that they had lifted their strike notice for Friday, an agreement having been reached with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC). No details of this agreement were immediately disclosed. The SNCTA and the UNSA-ICNA demanded salary catch-up in the face of inflation.
Clément Beaune had welcomed “a balanced agreement, which makes it possible to support the strong recovery in air traffic after the health crisis”, obtained thanks to a “spirit of responsibility and dialogue”, without specifying its ins and outs.
The lifting of the notice on Friday will allow the Rugby World Cup to “take place peacefully”, added the minister, also revealing that the unions had undertaken to “avoid any social movements during the major sporting events in progress and to come from the Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
Call for strike on October 13
Numerous days of air traffic controller strikes at the start of the year, during the pension bill, led the DGAC to ask airlines to preventively cancel part of their flights. The strikes had angered the airlines which serve France or pass through its airspace, the most flown over in Europe.
The Airlines for Europe (A4E) association, which defends the interests of major carriers based on the Old Continent, including Ryanair, easyJet, Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways, called on the European Commission in May to establish a “ compulsory arbitration” before a strike or “overflight protection” of the country affected by a social movement.
For its part, the USAC-CGT air traffic controllers union announced it was calling for a strike by DGAC agents on October 13 as part of a national inter-union day of action “against austerity, for an increase in wages , pensions and for the fight against inequalities”.
In France, a bill adopted in June in the Senate provides for the obligation for air traffic controllers to declare themselves on strike forty-eight hours in advance, as is the case at the RATP or the SNCF. The text, supported by the government, must reach the National Assembly in the fall.
