FRENCH HIT BRITISH TRAVELLERS

By Humphrey Carter THOUSANDS of air passengers either departing from or arriving in Palma had their journeys disrupted yesterday by the industrial action in France. At least 25 flights, mostly to and from the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent Germany, were hit by strike action in France with one flight to Belfast finally getting into the air 90 minutes late. However, Spanish and British air traffic controllers and airlines are used to annual Easter and summer protest action by French air traffic controllers in Marseilles which always throws Spanish-bound flights from Northern Europe in to chaos, and a contingency plan did manage to reduce delays to an average of 40 to 50 minutes. Of the 25 delayed flights, 12 were late taking off from Palma and the remaining 13 were late landing. The Belfast-bound flight should have taken off at 10.40 but passengers did not get airborne until 12.09. Sources for the Spanish Airport and Air Traffic Control authority AENA said yesterday that despite working in close co-operation with air traffic control in the affected countries and operating alternative flight paths which avoided flying through French airspace, delays could only be minimised. In co-operation with British air traffic controllers, air traffic along the flight path over Santiago de Compostela was increased with even flights from Northern Europe being re-routed across Britain and then round into Spain via Santiago de Compostela in the north west. Re-routing also involved the airlines having to adjust their flight operations and the build up of delays as the day developed led to a general back log of flights by yesterday evening with further delays suffered throughout the afternoon. Ibiza and Minorca airports, because of their relatively low level of flight operations at this time of year, had not reported any delays by 6.30 pm yesterday. Passengers from the Balearics hoping to catch some of the Iberia and Air France connecting flights to Paris via Barcelona faced flight cancellations. The two airlines cancelled 11 in total.