Doc Savage

Don't those silly Frenchies realize that the floods are God's way of telling them not to strike?

San Gottardo

Interesting logic. How many strikes must there have been in India and Bangladesh to justify all the massive flooding they get every year?

Doc Savage

A sense of humor would stand you in good stead.

I avoid using airlines that connect in Paris because of the propensity for strikes. I'm betting others do, too.

Ditto

Would you prefer connecting in Germany instead?

San Gottardo

More interesting. Complaining about others' absence of humor whilst ignoring the humor in the reply.

But there we go again, there are two things that never cross cultural borders: breakfast preferences and humor. American knee-slapping slapstick in-your-face obvious-so-that-even-morons-get-it humor vs. French tongue-in-cheek subtle and witty.

Humor as well? Or conviction and preference for being inconvencied for sure by for instance chronic delays at and a stupid security layout at LHR, long walks in FRA vs. more-often-than-elsewhere-but-still-seldom strikes in CDG? To each his own.

Noone says that strikes are OK (at least on this forum noone does), noone says that CDG isn't more strike prone than other places, but comparing the number of times I have been inconvenienced at CDG for strikes vs. delays at LHR or weather in Milan or anarchy in Rome I am quite happy with CDG.

ente_09

strikes in June are a cultural phenomena over there since 1968. Kind of like running with the bulls.

When I lived there, I would tease French friends in May about when the "greves" were going to start.

Henry III

Eek!

I'm booked on an overnight AF SIN-CDG for 13/14 June, with a connexion to DUS ... and then a separate ticket (different airline) from DUS back home to sunny Glasgow.

There may be trouble ahead!

-- Henry

irishguy28

How very Jane Austen!!

Or perhaps a bus ride!

jsfr

Interesting analogy...

In France - some flooding, everything comes to a standstill. Some strikes, business as usual life goes on (and indeed, for the most part strike inconvenience is actual rather limited as we know how to deal with it).

In the UK - a little rain? some flooding? Get out the gumboots - life goes on. Airport strikes - get out the camp beds as people will sleeping in the terminals!

stimpy

It appears that negotiations have been successful with the SNCF. So trains should be running fine for the rest of the summer once this agreement is approved.

http://www.france24.com/fr/20160607-...eminots-france

brunos

Stimpy is a shrewd political analyst and I hope that he is right.

However, we are not completely there yet:
http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/artic...0646_3234.html

Workers have voted to continue the strike wednesday.

Two unions UNSA and CFDT sem ready to sign, as they have 40% of the vote, that would be sufficient to validate the agreement. But it seems that two other unions, SUD-rail and FO are opposed and the big CGT union is "considering" the text. Unions have until 14 June to sign the text. The question is whether CGT will abstain (likely) or oppose the text. If so, the text would not be validated.

Whether the strike itself continues is another but related issue. It will probably depend on CGT attitude. The worst for CGT is if the number of strikers continues to drop Wednesday and in coming days, while CGT keeps implicitly supporting the strike. Maybe the situation will be clarified tomorrow.
An interesting series worth of Netflix.

Henry III

Interesting that the AF website offers free changes to tickets for the 11-14 June period; I looked into this and, although I get the options for moving the flights to later dates (no good for me), there is no option to change to the KL SIN-AMS flight that leaves just a few hours later (although, technically, it's the next day, 00:40). The KL SIN-AMS-DUS route would still allow to me to make my onward flight from DUS, and there appears to be availability on the said flight ...

I'll see if I can get any joy from the AF staff (?) at SIN (when I get there - a couple of days before the scheduled departure). Alternatively, if the flight is cancelled, I guess they'll have to (try to) reroute me, possibly onto that very KL flight? (Will need to be one of the early requests, though.)

FB Platinum, travelling in business class - shouldn't be a problem, methinks?

-- Henry

MSPeconomist

Any predictions on strikes or no strikes for Paris in mid-late July?

Ditto

If that is what you want, I would suggest calling AF sooner rather than later.

bodory

I am booked on the 12th...