IT'S STRIKE SEASON

Just when you thought flight delays couldn’t get any worse, Simon Calder lays out where and when action is happening

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Just like Easter, the official start of the summer air traffic control strike season is a moveable feast. Normally it is French workers who walk out en masse to scupper the travel plans of tens of thousands. But, rather like the start of the Tour de France, sometimes it begins elsewhere.

This year, Belgian air traffic control slightly jumped the gun, walking out on 31 March. The last day of March technically qualifies as “summer” because the northern hemisphere airlines switch from their winter schedules when the clocks go forward. But while the stoppage grounded all flights to and from Brussels and Charleroi airports, the wider impact was limited.

The Greeks have gone for April, with a 24-hour strike today that has already caused and will continue to cause disruption. The first flight of the summer to be grounded by a large-scale walkout of the expert men and women who keep the skies safe was Aegean Airlines’ 7.20pm departure from Athens to London Heathrow the day before. The reason: the return flight to Athens was due to land in the early hours of this morning, and so the round-trip was grounded – along with similar operations to Paris, Porto and Jeddah.