Information for those travelling on Weds 30th May.

[carol]

Rhodes Airport aviation news have announced that air traffic controllers will be striking for 3hours between 10am and 1pm local times, this will of course affect flights arriving from the UK and other countries during these times, sorry to be the bearer of bad news 🙁

[Liz]

Fedon have cancelled their 11.30 crossing from Kamiros and the 16.oo from Halki

[Deleted]

Gatwick to Rhodes on 30th showing as cancelled. I wonder is this a one off or is it likely to become a weekly event. Just wish they would stage their strikes on another country’s changeover day fo r once.

[carol]

Yes Sth, these strike days always seem to affect Wednesdays, time they shared them out a bit with other countries arrival days instead of always inconveniencing the Brits 😡

[Deleted]

I notice that other airlines are showing delays or rescheduling. Not EasyJet. They have cancelled - end of story. How does that deal with a couple of hundred holidaymakers each way? I hope this is not a pattern for the remainder of the year.

[carol]

The logistics of that must be quite interesting as the planes won’t be in Rhodes to bring people home unless they fly them out empty after the 3 hour ban, what an odd thing to do when other airlines are finding ways round it. It makes me relieved that we fly with Jet2 on a Monday these days.

[jamesthebutler]

May 30, 2018 6:12:09 GMT @sth said:

I notice that other airlines are showing delays or rescheduling. Not EasyJet. They have cancelled - end of story. How does that deal with a couple of hundred holidaymakers each way? I hope this is not a pattern for the remainder of the year.

Yes, Sth, it seems EJ seem the only company to have cancelled flights, offering either refunds or alternative - presumably 'other day' flights as far as Rhodes would be concerned, that's all fine and dandy other than for wasted time, money, effort, a ruined holiday (especially if you were going for a week) when the holiday should be something to look forward to. Over the years, I'm sure most of us have experienced some 'challenge' or the other in getting to Greece or the Islands and accepted it as such, but if this were to become a scheduled event, I fear some would say 'I can't be bothered with this' and simply go elsewhere, so it becomes all rather self defeating.

My understanding is that the strike is wide reaching under the trade union 'umbrella' rather than just the air traffic controllers - IF there is any flip side to this, the ATC are out for 3 hours as opposed to a day or more.

Needless to say, I echo the 'Wednesday' point made by Carol.

[Deleted]

The strike is indeed wide reaching however, the air traffic strike is pure "evil" and it matters not really whether it is an hour or six hours, the damage is done as far as Easyjet is concerned. My hope as said here and elsewhere is that it is not going to evolve into a weekly event. As it happens, I am heading out "next" Wednesday. If that is cancelled, apart from being somewhat "peeved", the race to try and salvage something by rebooking again with Easyjet on a day later next week will be fraught with problems. They are usually quite full so limited availability is one thing but, I have to leave home the day before and would probably already be in Gatwick when the cancellation happens. On,on,on......... Must not be pessimistic or negative - note to myself!! There is of course the wasted accom., booking on Halki which leaves the "owner" whoever that may be, with the likelihood of empty rooms etc.

[Liz]

This year is the first in about 10 years we've used EJ .. and I must admit this does worry me .. last year we had the air strike for our return journey but we just had to wait ..6 hours but we knew we were getting home .. we return on a Wednesday this time too ... think we'll rethink EJ

[stevec]

EJ's aircraft is cleaned, refueled and back out again within about 40 minutes of it landing at Gatwick, so the decision is probably a pragmatic one based on this, where the aircraft was going and the issue of available take off/ landing slots. No consolation if you were booked to fly in or out yesterday - would be interesting to see what they have done about rescheduling their customers traveling arrangements. Can't be many at the Rhodes end who'll have taken the refund option - probably not much space on the other UK bound flights, even at this time of the year.

[Deleted]

Usually their only offer is a refund or a seat - if available - on one of their later flights. In this case Friday,Saturday or Sunday. If one opts to fly on an Easy flight from Athens, the connecting flight from Rhodes is not covered. Been there and got that annoying T-shirt. Just learned that there are no planned strikes next week.

[jamesthebutler]

May 31, 2018 7:47:59 GMT stevec said:

EJ's aircraft is cleaned, refueled and back out again within about 40 minutes of it landing at Gatwick, so the decision is probably a pragmatic one based on this, where the aircraft was going and the issue of available take off/ landing slots. No consolation if you were booked to fly in or out yesterday - would be interesting to see what they have done about rescheduling their customers traveling arrangements. Can't be many at the Rhodes end who'll have taken the refund option - probably not much space on the other UK bound flights, even at this time of the year.

Hi Steve, the interesting thing on looking at Rhodes Airport arrivals yesterday was that two UK flights I think one from Stansted and perhaps Newcastle arrived - albeit late - one of them with a UK flight departure of 0500 (Easy Jet from Gatwick is now 0530) was just over 3 hours late so arrived 'in good time', the other was an hour and three quarters late taking off but got to Rhodes around 1600.

Each to their own, but I found this site helpful www.livinlovin.gr/strikes-work-stoppages-in-greece-updated/ they have a Facebook page.

[Deleted]

May 31, 2018 10:56:33 GMT jamesthebutler said:

May 31, 2018 7:47:59 GMT stevec said:

EJ's aircraft is cleaned, refueled and back out again within about 40 minutes of it landing at Gatwick, so the decision is probably a pragmatic one based on this, where the aircraft was going and the issue of available take off/ landing slots. No consolation if you were booked to fly in or out yesterday - would be interesting to see what they have done about rescheduling their customers traveling arrangements. Can't be many at the Rhodes end who'll have taken the refund option - probably not much space on the other UK bound flights, even at this time of the year.

Hi Steve, the interesting thing on looking at Rhodes Airport arrivals yesterday was that two UK flights I think one from Stansted and perhaps Newcastle arrived - albeit late - one of them with a UK flight departure of 0500 (Easy Jet from Gatwick is now 0530) was just over 3 hours late so arrived 'in good time', the other was an hour and three quarters late taking off but got to Rhodes around 1600.

Each to their own, but I found this site helpful www.livinlovin.gr/strikes-work-stoppages-in-greece-updated/ they have a Facebook page.

It is a useful site and have recently shared it with a few people.

[friendsofhalki]

The following observations might be helpful should any further disruptions of this type occur during the season. Greece air traffic controllers often use the tactic of three hour shut downs in the middle of the day, causing the maximum disruption for just three hours loss of pay. As it happened I took a keen interest in the online arrival and departure boards for Rhodes Airport on the 30th, in several instances also monitoring the actual flight paths taken via FlightStats. Apart from flights to Rhodes originating from within Greece (mainly Athens) and the Easyjet cancellation the only other flight actually cancelled was one from Duesseldorf. This is where the material differences between companies such as Easyjet and Ryanair and the other primary providers (e.g. TUI/Thompson, Jet 2, Thomas Cook etc.) in such situations come very clear. Whereas the latter will go to considerable and potentially costly lengths to work around such challenges, the former work almost invariably on the principle is that if a flight as normally scheduled would have to enter/cross closed airspace then it is cancelled. Witness all the cancellations from these two during times of French air traffic controller strikes, affecting hundreds of flight only passengers trying to get to countries such as Italy and Spain.

The unpalatable reality is that the attractive prices offered by such airlines come at a very real cost in terms of the risk of cancellation in such circumstances. In the case of passengers coming to Rhodes from places such as Manchester, Bristol, and Newcastle on flights scheduled to arrive within the three hour slot a) the take off times were put back typically between 1 and 1.5 hours, and b) the planes were re-routed to avoid Greek airspace to the last possible moment, thus instead of coming down through Greece from the north-west they took longer routes to the south, all times to arrive after the end of the shutdown. Having to take longer flight paths comes at a price in terms of extra fuel costs and further delays to the plane when airborne. Hopefully situations such as last Wednesday are rare, but given their possibility the significance of your choice of company in such circumstances should not be underestimated. There is a further reason why the likes of TUI and Jet 2 will go to considerable lengths to work around such challenges. Many of their passengers will be on package holidays with ABTA protection and all the legal obligations that follow in terms of getting any stranded passengers home at the company's expense. Easyjet and Ryanair can cut their losses and simply walk away.