An air traffic controllers' strike over a plan to unify Europe's disjointed skies crippled airline service Wednesday.
Thousands of passengers were stranded after major carriers canceled 7,700 flights over and into France.
The one-day strike was against the European Union's "single sky" plan, which is aimed at reducing congestion and delays by bringing all air traffic controllers under centralized supervision. Europe's poorly organized airspace is a patchwork of air traffic control zones managed by dozens of control centers using different monitoring systems.
The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, estimates that the system costs 5 billion euro ($4.7 billion) annually in extra fuel, airline staffing costs and lost passenger time.
Unions say that centralized control would result in job losses and that pressure to reduce costs could result in a privatization of their services, which would increase safety risks.
Air traffic controllers observed less crippling work stoppages in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Hungary, according to France's Civil Aviation Authority. Air France said that passengers could count on no more than 10% of its domestic and European flights but that 90% of its long-haul flights were flying as scheduled. Air traffic was not 100% paralyzed because a small number of controllers remained on the job.
British Airways said it had canceled all but four of its 126 flights in and out of France, and about 15,000 passengers were affected. It also canceled 38 flights to Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Germany's Lufthansa canceled 130 flights between Germany and France. Ten flights between France and Frankfurt were running with larger aircraft to accommodate more passengers.
In Italy, air traffic controllers held a strike for one hour. Alitalia airline canceled 50 flights and rescheduled 100 flights, which affected about 8,000 passengers.
In Spain, officials reported delays or cancellations in Barcelona, Málaga and Palma de Mallorca.
(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2002)
