French air traffic controllers' strike disrupts flights for second day

PARIS (Reuters) -A strike by French air traffic controllers entered its second day on Friday, leaving many passengers stranded at the start of Europe's peak travel season.

Civil aviation agency DGAC told airlines to cancel 40% of flights at the three main Paris airports on Friday because of the strike, which the air traffic controllers say is over staff shortages and ageing equipment.

Up to half of flights at France's other airports, mostly in the south, were also affected, DGAC added.

"We are hostages of Paris," said Mariano Mignola, an Italian tourist stranded in the French capital's Orly airport with two young children.

"Today we had to go home and the first available flight is July 8. We have no flat, we can't find a hotel, we can't find a car, we can't find a train, we can't find anything," he said. "We are in a panic, the children are scared and we don't know what to do."

French transport minister Philippe Tabarot called the strike unacceptable as did Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, who branded it "another recreational strike by French air traffic controllers' unions".

On top of the cancellations, DGAC warned that passengers could be affected by delays and significant disruption.

The Airlines for Europe (A4E) lobby group said late on Thursday that 1,500 flights had been cancelled over the two-day strike, affecting 300,000 passengers and causing cascading delays.

(Reporting by Makini Brice, Conor Humphries, Inti Landauro, Lucien Libert. Writing by Makini Brice and Ingrid Melander. Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)

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