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		</div><p>Europe&#8217;s largest airlines are lobbying the continent&#8217;s governments to allow neighbouring countries to carry out air traffic control (ATC) in airspace affected by industrial disputes.</p>
<p>Airlines for Europe (A4E), which represents carriers such as easyJet, Ryanair and British Airways&#8217; parent company IAG, wants an end to the cancellations and delays caused by ATC strikes.</p>
<p>Flights to, from and over France have been severely disrupted by dozens of strikes in recent years.</p>
<p>Aviation industry body Iata described the strikes as one of the &#8220;biggest challenges we see in Europe&#8221;.</p>
<p>Aage Duenhaupt of A4E said talks are ongoing with the European Commission about forming an action plan to reduce disruption from strikes.</p>
<p>&#8220;We could be in a position in the future to control parts of the European airspace from other countries or from central bases and not from an affected country,&#8221; he explained.</p>
<p>Mr Duenhaupt said technology is already in place to enable immediate improvements in ATC, although a fully integrated airspace would require more advanced work.</p>
<p>Aircraft flying over the UK are controlled by ATC centres in Swanwick, Hampshire and Prestwick, Ayrshire.</p>
<p>Flights between London and Spain were delayed by as much as eight hours during a recent French ATC strike with one service between Heathrow and Barcelona being forced to fly far off France&#8217;s west coast to avoid the country&#8217;s airspace, Mr Duenhaupt added.</p>
<p>IAG chief executive Willie Walsh told reporters at Iata&#8217;s annual general meeting in Dublin that the situation in France is &#8220;having a significant impact on all European aviation&#8221;.</p>
<p>He said: &#8220;It&#8217;s putting stress on the whole European ATC network. We believe there are technological solutions that exist, that could be put into place and we&#8217;ve been calling on the (European) Commission to look at these initiatives.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is something that is not driven specifically by the situation in France &#8211; where we have seen a number of ATC strikes &#8211; but it&#8217;s an initiative that could be put in place at any time to provide resilience for the ATC system in Europe, which is clearly in the interests of everybody.&#8221;</p>
<p>ATC strikes have taken place in Greece, Italy and Belgium in recent months.</p>
<p>Mr Walsh will join other chief executives of A4E members in Brussels later this month to call on governments to make progress on the issue.</p>
<p>Rafael Schvartzman, Iata&#8217;s regional vice president for Europe, blamed &#8220;political reasons&#8221; for the lack of action, saying that countries are &#8220;trying to keep these spaces in a traditional manner with borders&#8221;.</p>
<p>Iata is calling for the long-delayed introduction of Single European Sky (SES), which would create one European airspace.</p>
<p>It has previously commissioned a study which calculated that the inefficiency of the current system will cost 245 billion euro by 2035 if nothing is done.</p>
<p>&#8220;We can reduce and simplify the number of control centres to be able to manage efficiently the aircraft in Europe,&#8221; Mr Schvartzman said.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is something that can be done today by governments.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mr Walsh described the implementation of SES as &#8220;too long in the discussion phase&#8221;.</p>
<p>Ryanair cancelled 75 flights on Thursday amid the latest French ATC strike.</p>
<p>The Dublin-based airline said it was the 50th such strike since 2009 and the ninth in the past 10 weeks.</p>
<p>The low-cost carrier is urging people to sign a petition calling on the European Commission to introduce measures to alleviate the impact of the strikes.</p>
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