Tens of thousands of holidaymakers were facing fresh travel chaos on Friday as a French air traffic control strike gets under way, reports Yahoo! News.
The walkout forced major airlines to cancel flights due to limits on flying over France, including Ryanair which has axed 420 flights, affecting some 80,000 people.
EasyJet is cancelling 76 flights, British Airways cancelling 22, and Air France said it could only run 45% of its short-haul flights.
In a statement, Ryanair’s operations director Neal McMahon said: “It is inexcusable that passengers who are not even flying to or from France are disrupted.”
Mr McMahon said French laws protect French domestic flights, but not ones flying over the country.
“It is time that the European Union step in and protect overflights so that European passengers are not repeatedly held to ransom by a tiny French air traffic control union," he said.