Travel Warning: France Set To Cancel More Than 16,000 Flights In 2024

France is reportedly planning to cancel thousands of flights at Paris' main airports in the first two months of 2024.

More than 16,000 flights may get cancelled as a result of France upgrading its air traffic control systems. The cancellations will affect tourists travelling to and from France.

Air Traffic Control (ATC) in France is set to undergo a massive renovation of its systems, with several of those remaining unchanged since the 1970s - sometimes still using paper strips to represent incoming planes. Though it has been regularly upgraded over the years, from early 2024, the entire ATC system in France will be updated to more modern systems due to quick growth in air traffic.

Florian Guillermet, director of the Services de la Navigation Aérienne (DNSA) who is in charge of the ATC, said: "This new-generation air traffic control system is part of an ambitious technological modernisation of our systems, which has become crucial."

Around €1 billion is being invested in improving France's air traffic control so that it will be able to deal with more flights and operate more efficiently.

To avoid being overloaded during the time of the renovation, the ATC has confirmed that thousands of flights will have to be cancelled.

Amid the renovation work, the first two months of 2024 could be complicated for passengers as more than 2.5 million flights pass through the French airspace each year and any interruption can affect journeys across Europe.

The airlines have been urged to reduce the number of flights taking off and landing at Paris' Charles de Gaulle, Orly, Le Bourget and Beauvais airports by 20 per cent, between Jan. 9 and Feb. 14 next year. During this period, the new system will be tested at the air traffic control centre in Athis-Mons, the largest in France, which manages all of the airports in Paris and Beauvais.

Which flights will be cancelled during the upgrade?

While the flights that would be cancelled will be left up to airlines to decide, it is understood that the companies are likely to prioritise long-distance routes.

Air France told French media that it has been "forced to cancel certain short and medium-haul flights during this period" - more than 4,200 in total by the Air France-KLM group.

In a bid to have a bare minimum impact on their passengers, the airline group has already cancelled these flights, informed passengers and offered them transfers to different flights on the same day.