Strike at Transavia France: Around 30 percent of all flights canceled
The low-cost airline Transavia France has to cancel up to 30 percent of its scheduled flights this weekend. The background to this is that since Wednesday, unions have been calling on cabin crew to go on strike. So far, the Air France-KLM subsidiary has had to cancel numerous flights. On Friday, around 30 percent of the service was affected. Transavia France has also canceled 30 percent of all flights for Saturday. The airline expects that around a quarter will have to be canceled for Sunday. The strike affects the French division of Transavia. The Dutch sister company is not on strike, but it had to cancel numerous flights from Amsterdam-Schiphol in advance due to staff shortages and limited capacity. A small part of the service was relocated to other airports in the Netherlands. In France, the flight attendants' union Syndicat National du Personnel Navigant Commercial, among others, is calling on the cabin crew of Transavia France to go on an indefinite strike. At first, participation was rather low, as "only" around 15 percent of the planned flights had to be canceled on Wednesday and Thursday. The number of layoffs has doubled since Friday, strongly suggesting that more flight attendants have joined the strike. The union refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement with other groups last week because the base salary for newly hired flight attendants would be below the minimum wage. An airline spokesperson told Bloomberg that the agreement includes bonuses and improved staff scheduling. The media relations officer also said that the compensation would be above the minimum wage if variable components were added to the base salary.