By 
Over 500 flights in Europe have been cancelled ahead of a French air traffic control strike on Friday, impacting tens of thousands of travellers.
Budget airline Ryanair has cancelled 420 flights, British Airways will not run 22 flights and EasyJet has removed 76 flights as part of the move, the BBC reported. Air France
AF,
-0.07%
has cut 55% of its short-haul flights and 90% of long-haul flights.
However, major airlines saw an uptick in shares on Thursday after the strike was confirmed to go ahead. Ryanair’s
RYA,
+2.38%
stock was up 3% and EasyJet
EZJ,
+3.46%
shares rose 4% during Thursday afternoon London trading. British Airways, part of International Consolidated Airlines Group, S.A,
IAG,
+1.31%
was up 1.6%.
The majority of flights affected fly over France and arrive and depart from the country.
Neal McMahon, Ryanair operations director, told the BBC that it was “inexcusable” that those not travelling to or from France would be affected.
EasyJet added: “While this is outside of our control, we would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience they may experience.”
The SNCTA air traffic control union announced a strike on Wednesday due to wages and guarantees of recruitment.
The union said the strike was down to “the absence of a guarantee on recruitment for 2023 and the following years” and said considering inflation “the absence of a salary increase is unjustifiable”.
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