Fifth French ATC strike of December happening this week

Another French ATC strike is planned for Thursday Dec 19 – the fifth strike so far this month! It starts from 1800z on Wednesday, and ends at 0530z on Friday, but the big delays should really only occur during the day on Thursday.

The airlines have not been requested to reduce their schedules so far.

The Tango Routes will be busy with traffic avoiding French airspace in the west, and you can route via Algerian/Tunisian airspace without special permission if you want to avoid French airspace in the south.

For the latter, just make sure to add the right AFTN codes on flight plans! That means – as well as filing your FPL to the normal Eurocontrol addresses, you must also include those for Algeria (DAAAZQZX and DTTCZQZX) and Tunisia (DTTCZQZX and DTTCZRZX) – and make sure these are included for any subsequent DLA messages as well.

Eurocontrol’s Mitigation Plan for this strike is here.

For real-time updates of any airspace issues once the strike has started, keep an eye on this handy French ATC webpage: http://dsnado.canalblog.com/

And check out our article for everything else you need to know about how to survive French ATC strikes!