Week-long ATC Strike announced: France

This is different to last years Summer of Strikes – where we had 12 French ATC strikes, but almost all were for 48 periods. This new strike is posted for a Monday-Friday, starting at 6am on Monday 6th March and running through to Friday evening, taking out the LFRR/Brest and LFBB/Bordeaux FIR’s.

Brest and Bordeaux FIR’s cover the west of France, meaning this will squeeze the offloaded traffic into Paris, Reims, and Marseilles FIR’s. As usual, our advice is to avoid overflying France if possible. We look forward to the day we can announce French Strikes are over (like the joy that Iceland brought us) but for now … no end in sight.

So, if you want some different options for getting around the Bordeaux FIR:

For north-south flights The Tango Routes – via Shanwick
For east-west flights try to file further north, into Belgian/Eurocontrol/German airspace, or come south into Barcelona/Marseilles
Read the Eurocontrol NOP for any relief routes accepted by other ACC’s
And, here’s a map :

Reroutes via Tunisia, Algeria

Tunisia and Algeria regularly open up their airspace to reroutes during French ATC action – and will likely do so again for this strike.

Tunisia (DTTC FIR): Overflight permit is required (AFTN direct DTTVYAYX)
Algeria (DAAA FIR): Overflight permit not required during this strike but copy FPL to DAAAZQZX and DTTCZQZX

Reroutes via Shanwick Airspace

Read our earlier post on this: https://ops.group/blog/the-three-sisters-shanwicks-tango-routes/

A teleconference will be held by DSNA (in French) on Wed 1st March at 1400 UTC.

Keep an eye on the Eurocontrol NOP for updated info.