One of the main air traffic controllers’ unions called on its members on Thursday to strike on Saturday and Sunday at Paris-Orly airport, to demand “adequate staffing”, according to it, not guaranteed by a recent agreement. “Our managers persist, for Orly, in stinginess and apothecary calculations which will quickly reduce the teams to understaffing,” said Unsa-Icna, the second representative union of air traffic controllers, in a leaflet.
Contacted by AFP Thursday afternoon for possible details on the consequences of the social movement on the flight programs of the second French airport, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) was not able to respond immediately. “Adequate staffing levels are a necessity to guarantee working conditions adapted to the safety missions incumbent” on air navigation control engineers, assured the union organization.
She deplored that the agreement signed at the last minute at the end of April between the DGAC and the main controllers’ union, the SNCTA (60% of the votes in the last professional elections), did not resolve the issue of “understaffing” which are looming at Orly, according to her, by 2027. This agreement on support measures, notably salaries, for the planned overhaul of air traffic control in France, had been rejected by Unsa-Icna (17% in last elections) and the third representative union, the Usac-CGT (16%), which had maintained a strike notice for April 25.
This movement resulted in the cancellation of several thousand flights in France and Europe. Parallel to the mobilization of Unsa-Icna in Orly, Usac-CGT filed a strike notice from May 23 to 30 to specifically protest against the weakening of the “territorial network” planned according to the union by the control reform. air.