France's two largest air traffic controller unions have voted to hold a six-day strike from Tuesday.
More than 60 per cent of the 4,000 members of the SNCTA and UNSA-INCA unions voted in favour of industrial action yesterday.
The move follows a strike by public sector workers, including air traffic control staff, last month (see news, May 15). Also last month, French pilots union SNPL called off a proposed month-long strike just hours before it was due to begin (see news, May 2).
Next week's scheduled strike is set to last from June 24 to 29 and is set to cause widespread disruption with an estimated 50 per cent of flights likely to be grounded.
It comes ahead of a June 30 deadline for the French government to outline its air sector budget plans for the next five years to the European Commission.
The strikers are protesting planned budgetary cuts from next year until 2019, cuts that are part of the EC's Single Sky Europe policy to reduce air navigation costs by rearranging airspace into "functional blocks".
Graham Smith
