What are the implications to GA of the French ATC strike scheduled for 16-18 April and 29 April – 1 May?
Presumably IFR flights to/from/through France would be inaccessible, or likely to be heavily delayed.
But perhaps VFR flights might be feasible, assuming you don’t want/need any regional information service and could land at airports on the basis of self-announced (in French).
I’m assuming that Tower controllers would also be out but that other airport workers, customs, offices, security etc. would still be there as usual.
Would this also mean that many flights are diverted via neighbouring countries (e.g. Belgium), so that IFR GA traffic could also suffer delays there too?
I guess VFR wouldn’t be much affected elsewhere.
I have no details about the strike on your mentioned date, but generally yes some flights usually reroute via other countries. Normally, not the whole country is on strike for the full duration, but different sectors have different “downtimes”.
I would suggest to consult Eurocontrols Network Operations Panel section network headline news, for details. Also, there’s usually a NOTAM detailing what works and what not. For todays strike, it is A1329/15. Then there’s also the DSNA blog,
Also, if you can file a flight plan and don’t get ATC slots, you should be good. Eurocontrol normally introduces rules forbidding IFR operations at affected aerodromes for the strike duration.
From todays tactical update 0910 UTC:
LECM (Madrid) airspace
T9 Southbound/Northbound regulated due to additional traffic due to industrial action in France.
Moderate delays.
EDUU (Karlsruhe) airspace
Nattenheim Top sector regulated due to additional traffic due to industrial action in France.
Moderate to high delays.
DTTC (Tunis) airspace
The entire tunis ACC regulated (excluding dep/dest DT..) due to additional traffic due to industrial action in France.
High delays.
So yes, the strike has some effect on neighboring sectors.
What would be the best way to deal with this for EGKA-EDNY and back?
I can easily avoid landing in France for as long as necessary.
Wait and see which sectors are affected. I would hazard a guess that it’s mostly the Paris area – but they won’t let you through the Paris area below FL200 anyway.
Bienvenue en Belgique :-)
Utter carnage at the high levels. Never seen the airspace around German Corner (EDISA) so busy. That and the slot delays (90 mins for us, someone was quoted 4 hours to S Italy) made it a tough day out.
I would personally suggest going “VFR” if you can…
How about lower airspace (FL100-190)?
The problem with VFR is that anybody can screw you up, just by denying entry to CAS. They don’t have to give a reason.
Presumably one can just avoid French airspace? There is never any significant (or any!) enroute traffic in the lower airspace.
I flew VFR from LFPN to LFPT and back today. Nobody in the TWR at LFPN but that was already NOTAM’ed long time ago. There should have been someone in the TWR at LFPT, but at 10:15Z a NOTAM was published saying that there was no ATS due to a strike.
I do not know what the effect would be on low-level IFR, but I assume there will at least be slots. You could try to file a flight plan just for the fun of it, and see what happens and then cancel…
I don’t want to disrupt this thread which is probably quite useful for many of you in this ‘crisis’ and so maybe wait with responding until the dust has settled, but what is this with French ATC? Why are they so often on strike? This is an open question..
