Holiday warning as strikes threaten to cause chaos in two top tourist hotspots

BRITS have been urged to brace for travel chaos ahead of a series of strikes at airports in two top tourist hotspots.

Thousands of flights are set to be impacted as air-traffic controllers in France and Italy stage walkouts while the summer season kicks off.

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It is feared mayhem will erupt across Europe as airlines desperately try and redirect travellers.

A 24-hour strike is set to take place on Sunday in Italy, as air-traffic controllers, handling staff and cabin crews take industrial action.

Workers are downing tools amid a row over employment contracts, amid fury that pay and conditions have not improved over the last six years.

Four of Italy’s largest transport workers’ unions will take part in the strike, leaving the country’s major airports in jeopardy.

Staff at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport and handling staff at Bergamo’s Orio Al Serio airport will ditch their posts for the full 24 hours.

Handling staff at airports nationwide will walk out between 12pm and 4pm.

Meanwhile, air traffic control operators in Rome and Milan will join them on the picket lines between 1pm and 5pm.

But on the bright side, flights scheduled to leave between 7am and 10am or 6pm and 9pm are protected from strike action under Italian law.

Further chaos will then grip France next week as protests over pension reforms were backed by airport staff across the nation.

Air-traffic controllers are throwing their weight behind the movement and will strike on June 6, ahead of the French parliament’s National Assembly two days later.

Demonstrators blocked the motorway and lobbed flaming bins into the road during a fiery clash with cops earlier this year.  

According to Eurocontrol, the protests between March and April disrupted a whopping 237,000 flights across Europe.

It said the “damage was much greater” than that caused by the memorable Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in April 2010, which impacted around 100,000 journeys.

Flights are already getting cancelled at several French airports as airlines prepare for pandemonium on Thursday.

Holidaymakers have been warned to expect delays and to come to terms with the possibility of not taking off at all.

Eurocontrol has notified airlines that there will be traffic restrictions at control centres in Bordeaux, Marseille and Paris.

It comes after over 1,000 workers walked out of Disneyland Paris last week, causing further disruption to holidays.

Airports in the Balearics are picking up the slack as their European counterparts strike, with flights being redirected to three airports.

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