Up to three in ten European flights this summer may be at risk of being delayed or cancelled after air traffic controllers warned they would strike.
Staff at the European air traffic management body Eurocontrol reportedly said they would take industrial action during peak periods in the summer after talks with bosses broke down over pay, staffing and rosters.
Families hoping for a trip abroad must now wait to find out if their flights will be hit, with strike dates set to be revealed within days.
The walk-outs could lead to delays or cancellations of up to 12,600 flights a day across the continent, an industry source told The Times.
They warned: ‘In a full-blown strike, 20 to 30 per cent of flights would be at least delayed. They are big numbers.’
Holidaymakers face a summer of chaos as up to three in 10 European flights could be at risk of being delayed or cancelled – after air traffic controllers warned they would strike (stock photo of Aegean Airlines Airbus A380)
Eurocontrol is expecting to handle 33,000 daily flights for the next eight weeks, rising to more than 34,000 on Fridays.
A senior airline source told the newspaper the impact could be ‘massive and extremely disruptive’, adding there had not been a much contingency planning in the event of a full strike.
A first wave of strikes was set to be announced on Monday, according to the newspaper’s sources.
Officials at the organisation believe action is now inevitable and will target the start of the main school holiday period in England and Europe.
Stewart Wingate, boss of Gatwick airport, said that strikes at European air traffic control were his biggest challenge this summer.
Eurocontrol handles more than 96,000 messages a day from pilots and airlines, all of which need to be checked and inconsistencies dealt with manually.
Every pilot flying in or over Europe has to submit a flight plan to Eurocontrol’s operations centre. The centre validates the plan and makes sure multiple planes in the region do not have the same ‘call-sign’, a way to identify planes.
The organisation acts as the ‘area network manager’ so that flights are able to cross borders and go between air traffic control centres with ease. It is also responsible for landing and departure slots at several European airports.
Union Syndicale Bruxelles (USB), which represents EU civil servants, wrote a letter to managers demanding that 20 more controllers were hired immediately – citing a 25 per cent shortfall in staff of about 40 controllers.
Controllers at the European air traffic management body Eurocontrol reportedly said that they would take industrial action during peak periods in the summer after talks with bosses broke down over pay, staffing and rosters (stock photo of air traffic controllers at Munich Airport)
The letter added that the union saw no other option than to progress with strike action. But an industry insider said last-minute talks were still going ahead in the weeks ahead with focuses on staffing levels.
Air traffic control centres across Europe have found recruitment difficult since the pandemic, which led many workers to an early retirement.
Finding new staff for the stressful job, which makes you responsible for thousands of people’s lives at once, has been a challenge.
This comes after director-general of Eurocontrol Raúl Medina urged airports and air traffic control centres to increase recruitment and asked airlines to keep to their allotted schedules.
He added that airspace in Europe could experience ‘high overloads’ of traffic on most days this summer in many busy European areas such as Reims and Marseille in France, Athens in Greece and Budapest in Hungary.
Warnings of this nature have also been issued for London, Brussels, Nicosia, Warsaw and Zagreb for peak days such as Fridays and weekends in summer.
These overloads can lead to flight delays as planes may be forced to fly longer routes to avoid areas full of traffic.
And a Eurocontrol spokesman said they were aware of the strike intentions but that no date had yet been set. They insisted that the body was ‘making every effort to keep negotiations open’.
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