60 per cent of Air France flights cancelled Monday due to pilots' strike
Six out of 10 Air France flights will be cancelled on Monday due to a pilots’ strike, the company announced on Saturday. Unions predicted more cancellations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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“Air France expects to operate 40 per cent of its flights on 15 September, given an estimated 60 per cent of pilots on strike that day,” a company statement said.
The figure is slightly higher than the 50 per cent predicted by CEO Frédéric Gagey on Saturday.
The SNPL pilots’ union has called a strike from 15-22 September, while two others have called for it to last until 18 September in a dispute over conditions on the company’s low-cast arm, Transavia.
Air France has urged passengers to put off their journeys and offered to change tickets free of charge.
It will give further details of cancellations on a daily basis.
The SNPL predicted even fewer flights on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying that the company was planning to use pilots promoted to management on Monday and that they would be obliged to take the following days off.
Negotiations are supposed to continue over the weekend but Gagey showed no sign of backing down on the plans for Transavia on Saturday.
Low-cost airline EasyJet has laid on an extra 1,000 seats on flights from Paris to the southern French cities of Toulouse and Nice in a bid to pick up passengers due to Air France's troubles.
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