Ryanair forced to cancel 300 flights with thousands of passengers affected

National air traffic control strikes in France have left Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways flight schedules in chaos.

Some airlines have issued travel warnings to customers, while British Airways has cancelled multiple flights with no explanation on its website. Strike action has also impacted journeys over French airspace, including those to Greece, Spain and Italy.

The strikes are expected to see 75 percent of flights to and from Paris Orly Airport cancelled while two-thirds of flights at Paris Charles de Gaulle are likely to be cut.

Marseille-Provence Airport is also set to lose two-thirds of flights while Nice and Toulouse could see 60 percent of flights affected.

In a statement on its website, budget air carrier easyJet warned: “We expect significant disruption across our network and advise customers to check the status of their flight on our flight tracker on our mobile app or website.”

To provide additional support, the airline has extended all customer services lines until midnight tonight.

Ryanair has cancelled more than 300 flights in anticipation of the strikes, affecting 50,000 passengers.

The airline's CEO Michael O’Leary said: “French air traffic controllers are free to go on strike, that’s their right, but we should be cancelling French flights, not flights leaving Ireland, going to Italy, or flights from Germany to Spain or Scandinavia to Portugal.

“The European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen has failed for five years to take any action to protect overflights and the single market for air travel.

“We’re again calling on her to take action to protect overflights which will eliminate over 90 percent of these flight cancellations.”

British Airways has not issued a statement on their website regarding flight disruption, but the live departures schedule shows several cancellations on flights from London airports to France.

Airports have urged customers to check before they travel, including Dublin Airport which tweeted: “Due to a planned Air Traffic Control strike in France, a total of 36 flights due to operate at Dublin Airport today have been cancelled by airlines, including 23 departures and 13 arrivals.”

But some passengers have still been let down by airlines despite warnings, as one X user shared.

They took to the social media platform to say: “My flight to Nice was also cancelled, and Ryanair will only re-route you to an airport in the same country as the one you originally booked. Helpful when every flight to France is cancelled! Had to scrap my entire holiday. Very annoying”

Another wrote: “You have to wonder what's the point of airline customer services. There's an air control strike in France today and most flights from where I'm flying have already been cancelled. Contacted easyJet about mine and they said 'it's still showing on time'. Yeah, I can see that but when will you know for certain because people need to make alternative arrangements. 'We don't know but keep checking online'. Cool.”

The strike is expected to last for 24 hours and British tourists travelling to and from France should check their flight details.