A 48-hour strike by EasyJet France pilots—announced last night by the SNPL union after talks with management collapsed—started at 03:00 local time on 24 September and rolls into today, 25 September. According to the Swiss mobility club TCS strike calendar and live data aggregator ‘Is It A Strike’, the work-stoppage affects all bases at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Orly, Nice, Lyon and Toulouse, representing roughly 18 % of scheduled domestic and intra-EU departures. EasyJet has pre-emptively cancelled 212 flights, mostly Marseille–Paris, Paris–Milan and Nice–London Gatwick sectors. Passengers have been re-routed where possible on Air France and Transavia services, but France’s hub-and-spoke layout means regional airports like Nantes and Bordeaux are seeing knock-on delays because aircraft rotations are out of position. Corporate travel managers report that seat availability on alternative carriers dwindled overnight; fully flexible last-minute fares on the Paris–Toulouse shuttle exceeded €650 one way by 07:00. The dispute centres on rostering and fatigue management following EasyJet’s aggressive summer 2026 expansion. Pilots demand a ‘minimum 72-hour rest window’ after four consecutive early-morning take-off blocks, plus index-linked inflation adjustments to per-diem allowances. Management is offering a delayed pay-rise and says the rest-window proposal would jeopardise low-cost carrier economics. With arbitration stalled, the union has filed additional strike notifications for the busy Toussaint holiday period in late October. From a mobility-programme perspective, companies should invoke air-disruption clauses in their travel insurance and remind travellers that EU 261 compensation claims are valid when strikes originate within the airline’s own workforce. Travellers booked on 26–27 September flights should monitor the airline’s flight-tracker; even if the strike ends tonight, aircraft and crews may be out of sync, causing residual cancellations. Rail alternatives are proving popular. SNCF added two last-minute TGVs on the Paris–Nice route, but business-class seats sold out within 30 minutes. Eurostar says it can no longer honour ‘any-train’ coupons issued by EasyJet due to capacity constraints. Road-warriors may need to turn to car-share platforms for regional hops, something several relocation-management companies have already built into their emergency playbooks.
