By Tommaso Lecca
The French strike 鈥渨ill eventually have a negative impact on the network, that鈥檚 for sure,鈥 said Fr茅d茅ric Deleau, vice president for Europe of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers鈥 Associations, a global organization whose membership does not include French unions.
When strikes or other air traffic problems occur, he said, 鈥渢he rippling effect of traffic jam鈥 forces air traffic controllers to 鈥渉old traffic near the airport and then en route we have to start reducing the speed of the aircraft so that they don鈥檛 arrive too early 鈥 only after the problem is solved we can let the system resume.鈥
The looming French strike is just one more risk in a gloomy outlook for summer flights.
鈥淓very summer since Covid has been the worst summer until now,鈥 said Paul Reuter, vice president of the pilot union European Cockpit Association.
鈥淲e have a finite airspace, a finite number of runways, the airports have capacity constraints 鈥 any disruption, because have very little buffers, it鈥檚 going to mess up the whole system. And that is probably what we鈥檙e going to see this summer as well,鈥 said Reuter, who works as a Boeing 737 captain for Luxembourg鈥檚 Luxair.
Politicians are also well aware that air traffic in Europe has become fragile and prone to disruption.