Strike grounds 50% of flights at France's main airports

A strike by air traffic controllers have thrown flight schedules into chaos across France on Tuesday, with officials saying nearly 50% of flights have been canceled at the nation's busiest airports.

Airlines and airports have moved to trim their schedules in an effort to cope with a three-day strike by air traffic controllers.

The Civil Aviation Authority said that some 1,800 flights were cut Tuesday in Charles de Gaulle, Orly, Beauvais, Lyon, Nice, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux airports.

"(The cancellations) are for security reasons, but also to avoid airport overcrowding," the Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Eric Herault says to The Associated Press.

Air France already had canceled more than 480 flights as of 7:40 a.m. ET (1:40 p.m. Paris time) Tuesday, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.

The New York Times writes Air France "said that it expected significant disruptions and was advising passengers with reservations Tuesday for a flight in France or on a European flight departing or arriving at a French airport to postpone their travel plans if possible."

Air France, however, also said it was working to find space for all of its passengers with intercontinental flight reservations Tuesday, "either on its own flights or with another airline," according to the Times.

In the USA, the three biggest U.S. airlines (United, Delta and American) have instituted flexible rebooking policies as they warn customers about possible disruptions on itineraries to or through France.

Air traffic controllers are strike over a plane that would centralize control of Europe's air space. The disruption comes ahead of a speech scheduled for Tuesday in Strasbourg by the EU's commissioner for transportation. Siim Kallas — the commissioner — is expected to fast-track initiative on claims that European air traffic control inefficiencies cost airlines and customers nearly $6.6 billion a year.

"We need to boost the competitiveness of the European aviation sector and create more jobs in the airlines and at airports," Kallas is quoted as saying by the Times.

And, while France is the epicenter for the work disruption, strikes are expected to spread to several other nations within the European Union on Wednesday.

Source: USA Today