Strikes, staff shortages and flight delays: for Eurocontrol, it will be a "long hot summer" for travelers

It's a hot summer for European air traffic between strikes, staff shortages and delays. These are the major problems reported by Eurocontrol, the European organization that provides air traffic control for all international flights in the upper airspace of 41 member states.

These problems risk Taking the smiles off many travelers' faces during summer 2025. The most critical situations at the moment are in France, Germany, Greece and Spain.

After the French air traffic controllers strike, convened on July 3 and 4, in which more than One million passengers were affected by the protest and in which they were Nearly 3,000 flights canceled and more than 7,400 delayed, now Eurocontrol warns for the coming weeks.

As reported by Euronews, an EU official told the Financial Times that this summer could be the worst ever in terms of delays and cancellations due to air traffic control staff shortages, strikes, fires, and high travel demand.

But what are all these disruptions in the skies of Europe due to?

A first aspect, the least critical, is that Eurocontrol for summer 2025 received the 5% more flight requests than last year: a definitely significant increase, which affects the flow of flights and results in delays on the schedule. But this is not the real problem.

According to Eurocontrol creating more chaos over the overall trend are the Lack of personnel among air traffic controllers and the new air routes followed by the companies To avoid conflict zones.

In particular, the spotlight is on Ukraine. The closure of its airspace forced numerous "route recalculations" and An intensification of flights over other areas of Europe, which as of today do not have the staff available to handle this increase. And this inevitably triggers knock-on delays and inconvenience for those who fly.

But that's not all there is to it. Also ruining the vacation for more than one European tourist is. a series of strikes that may be called in the coming weeks. However, after a July packed with strikes, as of yet, none are planned for August. For September, however, already yes. Including one in Italy, on September 6.

Three strikes were called at the same time for that day in the airline industry:

• 4-hour stop at Catania's Fontanarossa airport. The staff of Aviation Services company will stop from 12 noon to 4 p.m., following the proclamation of strike by the UGL Air Transport union.
• EasyJet will be affected by nationwide action: aircrew members of the USB Private Labor union will cross their arms for 24 hours, from 00:00 to 23:59, with possible repercussions on many flights.
• The union FAST-Confsal has called a 4-hour national strike (also in the 12:00 - 4:00 p.m. time slot) involving personnel employed by companies in the air transport sector.

Finally, also contributing to summer air traffic inconveniences and problems are the forest fires, very prevalent during the warmer months, which could cause delays and route changes, as happened last year.