Air France regional carrier Brit Air has been forced to cancel around half of its scheduled flights owing to a pilots’ strike.
The pilots, represented by the UFPL, SPAC and UNAC unions, began the action at midnight as part of a protest linked with flight pay calculations.
A Brit Air spokeswoman says: “We have 70 flights which have been cancelled this morning. I think that we will have a lot of cancellations this afternoon – about the same number. I think it will be about 50% of our traffic for the day.”
She says that the pilots are seeking changes to an agreement which was signed in January 2006, when SNPL was its largest pilot union. Since then the other three unions have overtaken the SNPL in representation at the carrier.
It is unclear when the action will end. The spokeswoman says that the unions must notify Brit Air by midnight if they want to continue their action tomorrow.
Brit Air operates around 300 daily flights on French domestic and European short-haul routes. The airline’s management averted similar strike action planned for 26 March, when both sides agreed to last-minute talks the evening before the stoppage.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
