I put in a link to the originating thread.
Posts are almost never deleted. If there is a valuable post which is off topic, it is far better to start a new thread with it than to just delete it. Apart from that, a straight deletion massively p1sses off the poster and generates an angry email demanding Why, which takes time to deal with.
Peter wrote:
Poor people can’t afford to strike…
Unions have funds to support striking workers. That was learnt very early. Swedish unions have massive amounts. (That may be because strike rates in Sweden are among the lowest in Europe, but still…)
The problem when you switch threads with a post is that it no longer refers to the particular thread I was responding to and perhaps should be deleted.
I know I often ask myself “where have all the workers gone?” It’s not as if there is a huge rise in people applying for jobs, even in the most sought after professions.
Does anyone have the answer?
This happened in the UK too and probably in every modern country, where people (roughly) in their 50s are mostly paid-off (they own everything they have) and don’t need to remain in a high stress job, and covid was the trigger for a “life re-evaluation”. The slight problem is that these were statistically the best most experienced and generally most reliable (attendance-wise) people in the workforce.
And the extra “problem” is that ATC are extremely well paid. They must be in the top 2% in the UK (NATS area controller – was around 110k in 2010). Spanish may lead the universe (and I am not talking about the €800k scams they used to run) but France won’t be far behind, and if you earn so much that going on a strike for say 10-20% of your working year doesn’t affect your standard of living, it is easy to do that. I live in a fairly big house and if I didn’t have any expensive hobbies I could probably just about live on £20k net, so you can see the potential for stress reduction.
Poor people can’t afford to strike…
From here
Despite what some may think, I do not believe that this routing restriction has anything to do with the French national sport of striking.
If it was then I would have thought it would have been carried on tv news. After all if there is to be a strike the unions want everyone to know about it and not just a few ga pilots flying through French airspace on their way to Germany, Switzerland or Greece.
At the moment it is farmers who are indulging in our other national sport. Protest. Supermarkets and roads are being blocked by tractors and other agricultural machinery. This may well cause staff shortages for ATC as they struggle to get to and from work. But logic tells me that, this is not the case.as it would be difficult to know when there are going to be such staff shortages in time to stop flight plans being validated.
I am, however, inclined to take staff shortages at face value, as the reason for such restrictions.
I can’t speak for other countries, but I am aware that before Covid we were beginning to see staff shortages in certain sectors. This appears to have been dramatically exacerbated since Covid.
I know I often ask myself “where have all the workers gone?” It’s not as if there is a huge rise in people applying for jobs, even in the most sought after professions.
Does anyone have the answer?
Peter, thanks a lot for the write up! Ultra useful.
I didn’t know france atc has the flight plan,
I will probably try your method if the opportunity arises.
Come to LFMD and we’ll take you to the best pizza in the world. Or come round for dinner.
Get airborne from EGKA, fly at 5000ft (Class A CAS base 5500ft), then climb FL070 (Class A CAS base FL075), call up Paris Info even well before French airspace boundary, and ask for an IFR clearance 
They transfer me to Lille which gives me an IFR clearance. I continue FL070 (nice wx), later ask for FL100 (to stay above some cloud), and nearer the Alps ask for FL160. The route requires FL140 only but a) I see some buildups ahead and b) FL160 enables shortcuts across that dogleg over the Alps.
So ATC never knew anything about any staffing issue. In France all ATC has your FP.
I don’t think any ATC anywhere is aware of any “staffing issue”. They also see only your current FP, not the one with the long CTOT which you cancelled. CTOTs are just a Eurocontrol computer generated thing.
Landed with 29 USG. Max usable is 86.2 USG. With 29, one could go all the way to, probably, Kefalonia, landing with empty tanks I will post more later on the fly-in thread. Delaying today’s return by 24hrs due to really bad wx all along the return flight. Or maybe to LFMT today…
On that last flight I would love to understand a bit more how the process goes?
So you file amended flight plan by moving the vfr tag to about half way in france. I understand that.
But how do you manage it in flight? You depart vfr, stay below the class delta, and ask the fis for clearance to climb vfr into d above fl115?
Then you ask them if they can switch you IFR? Do you have to give them your whole route over the radio? Or they have it? Or you wait until you get to your filed IFR pick-up?
Sorry, I am somewhat unclear and so far I either waited for the ctot or departed vfr but then was mess in practice of weather/imc, airspace, fis contact radio messages etc once vfr…
Would love to learn a better way…
