More than 3 million Brits travel there every year
An EasyJet plane – file image(Image: coldsnowstorm via Getty Images)
UK travellers should be prepared for the risk of strike action over the next few weeks in a popular holiday hotspot. Millions of UK holidaymakers will be travelling abroad in the weeks ahead.
And France is one spot that will be popular with Brits. More than 17 million UK people travel there every year, according to the UK Foreign Office.
Now the new threat of industrial action has broken out – and it runs throughout the remainder of the summer holiday period. EasyJet cabin crew in France could walk out in strike action expected to run until September 2. Flight attendants there have complained about rota arrangements and working conditions.
French media report that three unions representing cabin crew at EasyJet France have issued strike notice covering the period from 7 August to 2 September. They have complained of a “continuing deterioration” in working conditions, according to a joint statement released this week.
What should you do if your flight is cancelled? For those planning to travel with the airline in the coming weeks, passengers whose flights are disrupted by cancellations or delays will be given 48 hours’ notice. Simply head to the ‘Booking’ tab in the EasyJet app to access the relevant information.
Should your flight be cancelled, you can request either a refund or a ticket change directly from the airline. If the replacement departure is scheduled for the following day, EasyJet may foot the bill for a hotel and a taxi to the airport.
The airports facing strike action include Lyon, Nice, Paris Orly, Bordeaux and Paris Charles de Gaulle. A spokesperson for easyJet said the company was disappointed and had made an offer of changes to tackle their concerns. They said: “Given we have planned negotiations in September, we call on the unions to call off this counterproductive action at this important time of the year for our customers”.
French news site RTL reports that workers are denouncing what they describe as “a vicious circle that has been going on for a year now”, with the SNPNC-FO, UNAC-CFE-CGC and UNPNC-CFDT trade unions condemning “the chronic instability of timetables, last-minute changes, imposed ‘trippings’ (a series of flights over several days, ed.), particularly gruelling rotas and a total lack of protective measures”.
“The notice period has been deliberately left open to cover the entire period,” the trade unions stress, adding that “key dates” for industrial action will be confirmed “48 hours in advance”.
The unions have accused management, whom they claim to have been warning “for nearly a year”, of failing to provide “concrete and binding” solutions to their concerns. Luckily for travellers, a previous strike call at EasyJet on Easter Monday in April had only a minimal impact on air traffic.
Local media say that as France’s second-largest airline by passenger numbers after Air France, British carrier EasyJet predominantly operates short- and medium-haul routes. The airline employs several thousand staff in France, a considerable proportion of whom work as cabin crew.
Gaël Leloup, a union representative for the Union of Civil Aviation Cabin Crew (UNAC), told RTL that “scheduling instability” has gradually become “the company’s normal way of operating”: “It’s normal to change people’s schedules once, twice, three or four times in the same day. And dozens of times a month, too. You might be moved from morning to evening shifts, or sent to another base in Europe for three or four days.”
The union representatives say they are fully aware of the disruption this strike action will cause to passengers’ travel plans, with another hectic weekend of holiday traffic on the horizon. “The sad thing is that it’s our passengers who will bear the brunt of it,” laments Gaël Leloup.
But with talks between staff and management having ground to a halt, workers feel they have been left with little choice: “After a year of discussions and still no solution, we have no option but to take major industrial action.”
For its part, EasyJet’s management said this week it is urging trade unions to withdraw the strike notice. The trade unions say they remain “open to negotiation” to call off the strike notice, provided that management “puts forward clear, concrete and binding solutions”.