Air France strike grounds dozens of UK flights, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded

Airline may have to cap the number of passengers on some flights because not enough cabin crew are available

An Air France Airbus A380, the world's largest civilian airliner (Getty)

Tens of thousands of Air France passengers have been stranded by a coordinated one-day strike involving pilots, cabin crew and ground staff.

The airline’s management has offered a basic increase of one per cent to staff, but the unions are demanding a six per cent rise. They are also unhappy about job losses and staff workloads.

Air France said: “Due to several Air France staff unions call for strike on Thursday 22 February 2018, our flights schedule is disrupted.”

Half the airline’s long-haul schedule has been cancelled, along with a quarter of medium-haul links and 15 per cent of short-haul services.

In addition Air France has warned that it might have to cap the number of passengers on some flights because the full complement of cabin crew are not available. There are strict rules on the ratio of flight attendants to passengers.

A dozen UK flights are among the cancellations. Services to and from Aberdeen, Manchester and Newcastle and two round-trips to Birmingham and Heathrow have been grounded.

Many British travellers, though, will find that even if their links to Paris are operating, the onward flight may be cancelled.

Long-haul, links from Paris CDG to Accra, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Dubai, Mexico City, San Francisco and Tokyo were among the cancellations. Two round-trips to New York were grounded.

Travellers whose flights are grounded are not entitled to financial compensation, but the airline is obliged by European passengers’ rights rules to provide hotels and meals as necessary. If an alternative flight on Air France is not readily available, travellers can expect to be rebooked on rival airlines.

Last year the Air France-KLM group increased profits by 42 per cent to €1.49bn (£1.32bn).