The airline industry is no stranger to mobilizing against pension reform, mainly on the side of air traffic controllers who went on strike every day of action. This is enough to push the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) to ask companies to preemptively give up a significant part of their flights.
But for each of these days, cancellations occur in Paris-Orly and never in Paris-Roissy-Charles de Gaulle (30% cancellations this Thursday). Why this difference in treatment?
Curfew
Unlike Roissy airport, Orly is limited by a nightly curfew between 11:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., during which time all aircraft movement is prohibited. It is also the only European airport in this case. The objective is to limit noise pollution in a highly urbanized area.
In Roissy, on the other hand, slots are allocated at night to the airlines. As a result, even in the event of a strike, flights can be changed, delayed and take off (or land) much later, in the middle of the night if necessary. Something impossible in Orly.
Due to the curfew applied in Orly, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation must anticipate, evaluate the number of strikers in D-1 or D-2 and then compare the operational capacities with the number of flights initially planned at the airport.
A simple mathematical calculation then makes it possible to find out the percentage of flights that cannot be operated before Orly closes at 11:30 p.m. A percentage that can still be revised upwards due to other factors such as school holidays, periods in which there may be fewer air traffic controllers at their posts.
Source: BFM TV
