Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Fri, 22 Aug) called on EU Commission President, Ursula von “Derlayed-Again”, to urgently reform Europe’s broken ATC system and ensure the protection of overflights, after 99 flights were delayed, disrupting 17,800 EU passengers, during the first two days (20-21 Aug) of Belgrade ATC’s 40-day strike.

Earlier this week, Belgrade ATC announced a 40-day strike, starting from Wed, 20 Aug. In addition to flights to/from Serbia being delayed, this strike will also disrupt overflights. This is because Serbia’s minimum service laws do not protect overflights during national ATC strikes, unlike in other countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece. As a result, even though it’s Belgrade ATC that are striking, most disrupted passengers are not even flying to/from Serbia but just overflying Serbian airspace en route to their destination (e.g., Poland – Greece, UK – Turkey, etc.).

This is completely unfair and highlights the need to protect EU passenger flights from being unnecessarily disrupted by national ATC strikes, just because they happen to cross that airspace. Ryanair calls on Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” to take urgent action to protect overflights during national ATC strikes.

Ryanair’s Director of Communications, Jade Kirwan, said:

“It is unacceptable that EU passengers not even flying to/from Serbia but are simply overflying Serbian airspace en route to their destination are being forced to suffer unnecessary disruption as a result of Serbian ATC strikes. This is because Serbia do not protect overflights during national ATC strikes, like they do in Italy, Spain, and Greece. It makes no sense and is abundantly unfair on EU passengers and families going on holidays that just happen to pass through Serbian airspace en route to their destination.

Ryanair calls on Ursula von “Derlayed-Again” to take urgent action to protect EU passenger overflights during national ATC strikes, and protect EU passengers from repeated and avoidable ATC disruptions.“