Flights from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and other French airports faced disruption on Friday as airport workers went on strike to demand salary rises to keep up with inflation and a recruitment drive to deal with resurgent travel demand.
The action is the latest trouble to hit global airports this summer, as travel surges after two years of coronavirus restrictions.
French airports have been largely spared the chaos seen recently in London, Amsterdam and some other European and US cities.
But on Friday, striking workers sought to call attention to the pain of inflation with a walkout on the first big day of France’s domestic summer travel season.
France’s civil aviation authority said 17% of scheduled flights out of Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris were cancelled between 7am and 2pm Friday, primarily short-haul routes.
A few hundred workers wearing union vests blocked a key road approaching Charles de Gaulle, forcing passengers to drag their suitcases by foot along a bypass to reach their terminals. A protest was also held at Orly.
Once inside, passengers faced crowds and delays at check-in, passport control and security stations.
In addition to salary rises, union activists called for an emergency recruitment plan to get airport staffing back up to pre-pandemic levels.
Airlines and airports that slashed jobs during the depths of the Covid-19 crisis are struggling to keep up as travel demand returns after two years of virus restrictions.
“Airport activity has reached 95% of its pre-Covid level, except that now we have 20,000 employees less at the Roissy (Charles de Gaulle) airport, so working conditions deteriorated dramatically,” said Nicolas Pereira, a striking airport worker with the CGT union.
“Those responsible are the various bosses who hurried to lay off workers during the Covid period to reduce the cost of labour.”
Paris airport workers are seeking a raise of 6% raise backdated to January 1, while management is proposing 3%, according to French media reports.
Airport firefighters at Charles de Gaulle are also on strike with specific salary demands, forcing the airport to close some runways.
Unions said the strike could last until Sunday.
