As a result, 17 per cent of scheduled flights from Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris were cancelled between 7am and 2pm on Friday according to France's civil aviation authority. Most of these flights were short-haul.
Dressed in union vests, the workers blocked an important road to Charles de Gaulle, which forced passengers to carry their suitcases on foot to reach the terminals. A protest also occurred at Orly.
After dragging their suitcase to the airport, the struggle was far from over for travellers, who then faced major crowds and delays.
It isn't just the sudden surge in demand for travel that has put a strain on staff, but this in combination with the fact that airlines and airports brutally reduced employee numbers during Covid-19 and have not returned to pre-Covid numbers.
"Airport activity has reached 95 per cent of its pre-COVID level, except that now we have 20,000 employees less at the Roissy (Charles de Gaulle) airport, so working conditions deteriorated dramatically," said striking worker Nicolas Pereira, who is part of the CGT union.
"Those responsible are the various bosses who hurried to lay off workers during the COVID period to reduce the cost of labour."
The Paris airport workers want a 6 per cent raise that tracks back to January 1. Management proposed a 4 per cent raise but this was rejected by the union, according to local media.
On Saturday Emmanuel Duchemin-Humbert, the representative of Force Ouvrière Aéroports de Paris told BFMTV they hadn't yet made the progress they wanted.
"We expected to be able to make progress given the strike, but we have not even been received by the management," he said.
"We don't want to disrupt people's holidays, but today some of our employees will not even get to go on holiday. Not because they are on strike, but because they do not earn enough money."
Unions said the strike could last through Sunday, with more planned later in July.
