Business travelers were hit by strike chaos in France on
Tuesday, regardless of whether they journeyed by air, train or car. Both
airlines and the high-speed rail system suffered from significant
cancellations, while road-users were hit by a severe blockade-induced fuel
shortage and lorry drivers slowing traffic on major routes to a crawl.
“We have been receiving 40 to 60 percent more calls than
normal from travelers,” said Laurent Comte, deputy managing director for
Carlson Wagonlit Travel France. “We have brought in extra staff and been
working extra hours.”
There also have been strike-related travel disruptions in
Belgium, Greece and Italy so far this month, all of them—as in France—in
protest of government austerity measures. To add to the European travel misery,
air traffic controllers in Finland will stage a one-day strike over new
contracts on Oct. 25.
In France, air traffic controllers staged a one-day strike
on Tuesday, their second in two months. France’s civil aviation authority, the
DGAC, asked airlines to reduce their schedules by 50 percent at Paris-Orly
Airport and 30 percent at all other airports in the country. Air France said it
managed to operate all long-haul flights on Tuesday, but was forced to cancel
some short-haul departures. It cancelled 20 percent of flights at Paris-Charles
de Gaulle Airport, which is its main hub and the base for all its long-haul
flights from the French capital, and 50 percent from Orly.
Flights from Orly also have been canceled owing to unions
disrupting fuel supplies to the airport. The national government has advised
airlines to arrive with their tanks as full as possible. Drivers have been hit
by fuel refinery blockades too, which left 4,000 of France’s 13,000 petrol
stations without supplies by Tuesday. “It has had an impact on the car rental
companies because they cannot refuel their vehicles,” said Comte.
There is no end in prospect to the blockades, although the
government has started using police force to break them up. Travelers also need
to be vigilant of violence flaring in French cities as disaffected youths have
joined in a sixth day of protests. The entrance to Bordeaux airport was blocked
by scores of protestors on Tuesday.
On the rails, half of all high-speed departures were
canceled on Tuesday as indefinite industrial action by train crew entered its
seventh day. Eurostar was not affected in France but, ironically, it was hit by
a rail strike that closed all stations in Belgium on Monday.
Comte said he expects the disruption for air travelers to
abate in the next couple of days but that rail travelers face continuing
problems, as this is the sector where the strikes are holding firmest.
David Lea, Western Europe analyst for overseas security
consultancy Control Risks, warned that industrial unrest could disrupt European
business travel many more times in the next few months as public spending cuts
bite deeper in several countries. “We are going to see a lot more of this, but
it won’t reach catastrophic shutdown proportions,” he said. “The level of
disruption will get to the top end of irritating rather than become debilitating.”