This week’s strike was initiated by France’s second-largest air traffic controllers’ union, UNSA-ICNA, and joined by the USAC-CGT, the third-largest union. According to AFP, about 270 out of 1,400 controllers participated in Thursday’s strike.
The airlines criticized France for not protecting planes flying over the country during these actions, causing disruptions across Europe.
“It is indefensible that today I’m canceling flights from Ireland to Italy, from Germany to Spain, from Portugal to Poland,” O’Leary stated.
The budget airline chief held the European Union, and specifically European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, responsible for the situation.
O’Leary mentioned that of Ryanair’s 400 cancellations due to the strike, “360, or 90 percent of those flights, would operate if the Commission protected the overflights as Spain, Italy, and Greece do during air traffic control strikes.”
“Von der Leyen and the Commission emphasized during Brexit: ‘We must protect the single market, the single market is sacrosanct, nothing would disrupt the single market,’” he remarked. “Unless you’re a French air traffic controller and you can shut down the sky over France.”
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