Aer Lingus and Ryanair cancel hundreds of flights due to French air traffic strike

Both Ryanair and Aer Lingus have cancelled flights due to a strike by French air traffic control staff. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

Aer Lingus and Ryanair have cancelled flights tomorrow due to a strike by French air traffic control staff.

Aer Lingus advised passengers that 12 flights scheduled on Friday have been cancelled.

All flights affected are between Dublin and French airports - Paris, Nice, Bordeaux, Lyon and Nantes.

Passengers impacted will be contacted directly. Those who wish to rearrange their travel plans can change their flight booking free of charge through the Aer Lingus manage booking facility, call centre and social media channels.

Ryanair has cancelled more than 400 flights across Europe due to the strike.

Passengers are advised to check the status of their flights before travelling but, at the time of print, more than a dozen flights to and from Cork and Dublin are affected.

The airline says some 80,000 passengers are affected by the cancellations, which includes 420 flights. When contacted, it declined to provide specifics for the number of Irish-based passengers who would be affected.

The flights include those to and from France, but also a large number which fly over the country too.

In a statement, Ryanair urged the European Union to intervene and protect overflights in French airspace. Domestic French flights are protected due to minimum service laws.

Neal McMahon, Ryanair's Ops Director, said: "It is inexcusable that passengers who are not even flying to/from France are disrupted because they overfly French Airspace at a time when French laws protect French domestic flights. It is time that the EU step in."

File picture: Leon Farrell / RollingNews.ie

In addition, Ryanair has apologised for blocking media access to its Annual General Meeting, saying it happened by mistake, but said it would continue to prevent access to one journalist from an Irish newspaper.

Reporters who understood they were being brought to the Annual General Meeting room, which is normally open to the press, were told they were being brought to a media room instead for a post-AGM briefing by Chief Executive Michael O'Leary.

After the conclusion of the meeting, O'Leary apologised to journalists saying his team had "mishandled" the situation and promised a more detailed explanation later.

All resolutions at the meeting were approved, Ryanair said, with 96% backing the remuneration policy and 100% backing the company's annual accounts, the airline said.

Most of the board was re-elected by at least 85% of shareholders, though two former senior Ryanair executives, Howard Millar and Michael Cawley were backed by 72% each.

O'Leary defended a decision to bar John Mulligan, a journalist for the Irish Independent, who he said had "misreported" on the company in the past, a charge Mulligan has repeatedly rejected as baseless.

The Irish Independent quoted the National Union of Journalists as saying that any attempt to dictate who covers a story would be unacceptable and pointed out that a complaint by Ryanair against the newspaper in 2019 had been rejected by Ireland's Press Ombudsman.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that O'Leary is in discussions to extend his term as CEO until 2028. His current term is due to expire in 2024.

- Reuters