At least 1,500 bags were stranded at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport after a technical glitch caused several airlines to try to ferry their luggage to passengers around the world on Saturday, which is likely to affect passengers this summer. There is a new problem.
According to the company that operates the airport, there was a technical problem with the baggage ordering system on Friday that caused 15 flights to leave without baggage, leaving bags on the ground. The airport had around 1,300 flights on Friday, the operator said.
Union activists said many more passengers took off without their bags, apparently as a side effect of the original disturbance.
The problem comes as airport workers in France are on strike demanding more hiring and better wages to offset inflation. Due to the strike, aviation authorities canceled 17% of flights from Paris airports on Friday morning and 14% on Saturday.
Passengers of canceled flights were alerted a few days back. The scene at Charles de Gaulle looked busy on Saturdays, but as usual for the first weekend in July, when the country’s summer travel season begins.
The unions plan to continue the strike on Sunday, but so far no flights have been cancelled. The employees have threatened to resume their work at the end of next week if talks with the company management do not yield a solution.
Until now, French airports were spared the chaos recently seen at airports in London, Amsterdam and other European and American cities. Airlines and airports that lost jobs during the peak of the pandemic are now struggling to cope with a sharp jump in demand as travel ramps up after two years of virus restrictions.
