Charles de Gaulle worker strike

We won't be flying to Europe until Next July 4, 2018. Any update on the strike? Anyone flown to CGD yet? I am aware that there are other airports such as Amsterdam, but we were just wondering.

This appears to be one of those one day strikes that the French labor unions declare from time-to-time with the impact being one day with messed up transportation. Let me know if this strike is more than that.

We were on the Magic this summer and there were strikes against a certain classification of BA flights ( think it was short haul crews, or something like that). It ended up not impacting our London to Copenhagen flights, but it did create some anxiety the week or so before our cruise. In fact, more than a few people ended up joining the ship a port later than the departure port, not so much due to strikes, but problems with flights. That is why we always go a few days before departure for European cruises.

whenever you fly to europe, and you have time constraints - like a cruise - you should definitely fly several days early.

we fly the other direction to get to our cruises in the US.

When we're headed for a cruise, i fly us to the USA 3 or 4 days in advance.

You never know what airport strike, airline strike, air traffic control strike, inclement weather, or even exploding volcanoes might delay you from getting to your destination.

when i'm headed for a cruise, i go with worst case scenario!!

The European transportation system seems to have a series of pre-planned one day strikes....whether it is at an airport or the bus system or whatever. It looks like a way of saying, "See how much power we have and what a mess we can make if we choose to?" and accomplishes nothing.

I totally agree with the idea of arriving at least 2 days early on an international trip and at least one day early on domestic. ANYTHING can happen to mess up transportation.

it's so frustrating when you plan a trip....

and downright scary as you go through the year waiting while the pilots of the airline you paid a very large fortune to for your tickets go on strikes (or slowdowns or sickouts etc).

that's what happened to us this past year, leading up to our august disney holiday...

our airline - the pilots kept striking through the year....flights were cancelled without warning......

in the end, thankfully, the airline managed to get to an agreement with the pilots...

at least one that held through the summer...

but there was a lot of nailbiting right up until we took off to fly halfway around the world to see our pal mickey! :D

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but as an example of weird strikes that can delay you in bizarre ways..

years ago, i was flying air canada for the transatlantic portion of my journey..

my local airport was having a weirdo strike...

the refuelers were on strike..

that is, the guys who fuel up airplanes...

so airplanes flying into the country had to have enough fuel on board to allow them to take off again and get them to Cyprus to refuel.

ok...so we board the plane in tel aviv, take off on what is supposed to be a non-stop flight to toronto, but the plane lands after a half hour or so in cyprus...

but we don't pull up to the terminal - no..

way out on the tarmac somewhere....seemed to be we were on a taxiway not far from the runway - it was the middle of the night so hard to see..

a tanker truck pulls up....

a man opens a folding chair next to the tanker truck and sits down - i guess he was the supervisor..

i mean, it was the most bizarre thing...this folding chair in the middle of a dark taxiway with this man sitting there doing nothing...twiddling his thumbs..."supervising"...

presumably we were being refueled..

in the meantime, the pilot plops down on the seat near me..

i was the only person sitting up front (in business class)....

he had a clip board and a calculator and he was punching away at the calculator and scribbling stuff down on the paper...

then he jumped up and left the plane...

so i asked the flight attendant what in heavens name he'd been doing..

she answered that he was calculating how much fuel he needed to buy in cyprus...

seriously?

he's calculating that? right before we head out over lots and lots of water?

all i could hope was that he was calculating correctly (as thoughts of the gimli glider kept running through my mind - but they were over land....we'll be over all that very unforgiving water.....hmmm......and this was air canada...oh oh.....)....

ok...so after whatever time it was, the door closes again and off we head down the runway, for our non-stop flight to toronto..

but no....that was not to be...

as we approached the shores of canada, we were informed that the plane was going to land in the frozen tundra that is halifax at that time of year..

why?

because the pilot had gone over his time because of the stop in cyprus...

now, the pilot could have kept going had he wanted to as there was clause that would have allowed him the extra time to get to toronto even though it went over his time (by only a few minutes)...

but no, he was royally pissed off that he'd had to stop in cyprus, so he decided to punish the passengers..

so we landed in halifax at a very early hour.

which meant that we now had to wait for many hours for a replacement pilot to fly from toronto to fly us out..

since apparently there were no 767 pilots in halifax..

and since there are noise abatement rules at toronto airport, flights only fly out after a certain hour.

so in the end we had to hang out in halifax for 7 frigging hours waiting for a pilot to take us on to toronto - which wasn't even my final destination.

once i got to toronto, of course i'd missed my connection to windsor (on one of those fun toy wind up propeller planes they use)

eventually i made it to windsor, where i hopped in a car service that took me across the border to detroit (and isn't that fun after travling for more than 24 hours)

of course, i wasn't heading for a cruise, so the whole thing was just annoying though at points oddly entertaining...

anyway, moral of the story - don't fly the same day of your cruise :cool:

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