France Orders Flight Cuts at Paris CDG and Marseille as a Civil Service Strike Hits Aviation

France’s civil aviation authority, the DGAC, asked airlines to cut their schedules at Paris Charles de Gaulle and Marseille Provence on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, as a nationwide public sector strike reached aviation staff. The request went out in a DGAC statement on Monday evening.

Airlines were told to trim 5% of their flights at Paris Charles de Gaulle between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time. At Marseille Provence Airport the cut is 25%, from 4 p.m. to midnight.

The DGAC said the cuts were meant to “limit disruption and guarantee the safety of air operations,” according to its statement as quoted by Europe 1. It told passengers to check the status of their flights with their airline.

Which airports are affected

The DGAC also warned of disruption during parts of the day at five regional airports: Nantes-Atlantique, Strasbourg-Entzheim, Limoges, Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées and Pau-Pyrénées. Traffic at the rest of the country’s airports was expected to run normally, the authority said, as Reuters reported.

For travelers on the US East Coast, the Paris window runs from 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time, and the Marseille window from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern.

The notice set percentages, not a list of flights. Airlines usually adjust their programs ahead of time to concentrate the cancellations on a smaller number of rotations, the French aviation site AeroSillage noted, so which departures go is each carrier’s call.

Why a civil service strike grounds flights

This is not a strike called by air traffic controllers over their own grievances. France’s main public sector unions all called a national day of strikes and protests on September 29, CNews reported.

Their main complaint is a new freeze of the point d’indice, the index value that sets base pay across the French civil service. The unions timed the walkout to pressure the government days before its budget, according to AFP reporting carried by L’Echo touristique.

Air traffic controllers in France are civil servants, so a civil service strike call covers them too. Some aviation unions, including the air navigation union SNNA-FO, relayed the call to their members.

How France sizes these cuts changed after a law passed in December 2023. Under it, any air navigation employee whose absence would directly affect flights must declare an intention to strike by noon two days before each strike day, according to the French government’s Vie publique summary of the law.

Before that law, unions had to file notice five days ahead, but individual controllers did not have to say whether they would walk out. The DGAC could not predict how many would strike, so it often canceled large numbers of flights as a precaution or at the last minute.

Senators made sure the declaration rule also applies when the strike notice is a national one for the whole civil service, which is the situation on September 29. In principle, that lets the DGAC set a cut for each airport from the declared numbers the day before, rather than impose a blanket one.

The DGAC’s statement, as reported, gave percentages rather than striker numbers. But the system helps explain how France’s busiest airport ended up with a far smaller cut than Marseille.

What passengers are owed

Europe’s air passenger rules, Regulation 261/2004, cover every passenger departing an EU airport, whatever the airline. A canceled flight still entitles the passenger to a refund or rerouting, plus meals and a hotel if an overnight stay becomes necessary.

The fixed cash compensation is a different matter. The regulation lets an airline skip it if it can prove the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances, and its recitals list strikes that affect an airline’s operation and air traffic management decisions among them.

Tuesday’s action lands a day before another stoppage nearby. Italy’s air traffic controllers at ENAV have called a four-hour national strike for 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. local time on Wednesday, September 30.