Ryanair today (31st May) delivered its ‘Protect Overflights: Keep EU Skies Open’ petition to EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen’s office, having collected more than 1.1 million signatures from fed-up passengers demanding that the EU Commission protect overflights and EU citizens’ freedom of movement during repeated ATC strikes.
In the first 5 months of 2023, there have been 57 days of ATC strikes (10 times more than 2022) forcing airlines to disproportionately cancel thousands of EU overflights from Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK and Ireland while France in particular, uses Minimum Service Laws to protect their domestic/short-haul flights while disproportionately cancelling overflights.
France (and all other EU states) should copy the example of Spain, Italy and Greece all of whom use Minimum Service Laws to protect overflights during ATC strikes.
