France urged to overhaul air traffic control after delays
Audit says reforms are failing and urges study of privatised model
Published
Air traffic control in France should move towards a privatised model given that attempts to reform the present system, implemented in 2024, are failing, according to the Cour des comptes.
In a report to the minister of transport, the court – France’s supreme public audit body – said air traffic controllers’ status as civil servants (fonctionnaires) does not make sense.
It added that France’s air traffic control system, overseen by the Direction générale de l'aviation civile (DGAC), was starved of the investment and flexibility needed to improve it.
According to the latest Eurocontrol annual review, France accounted for 36% of all en-route air traffic flow management (ATFM) delays in Europe in 2025 – more than any other country. The main causes were air traffic control capacity and staffing shortages, as well as weather and industrial action.
After a near disaster in 2022 at Bordeaux airport, when an easyJet flight from the UK nearly landed on a small aircraft waiting to take off, a new agreement to tighten the management of air traffic controllers was drawn up, agreed with unions in 2023 and signed in 2024.
An investigation into the incident found staffing had been reduced from the six controllers originally rostered to just three by agreement before the shift began.
Air traffic controllers draw salaries of around €110,000 a year with many specific bonus payments and local arrangements, such as those exposed in Bordeaux. The Cour des comptes noted that this “removes them from the usual fonctionnaires framework.”
Under the 2024 agreement, air traffic controllers were to get a €95million boost to their overall pay package. In turn, productivity had to increase and a system of biometric badges was introduced to make sure the appropriate staff were present at their workstations.
Savings would also be made by reducing the number of towers in France, something which can be done without compromising safety because of better technology.
France’s approach control centres, which handle flying traffic, were due to be cut from 28 to 18, while the 79 airport control towers, which provide services for airfield traffic, were to be reduced by between 20 and 25.
Progress is a 'long way'
However, magistrates from the Cour des comptes said that by mid-2026, nearly two-and-a-half years after the agreement was signed, the productivity and cost savings which were meant to follow “are a long way from being seen”.
It found local managers had only agreed to shut eight towers in spite of the national agreement, and that the eight would stay operational until 2028, instead of being closed immediately as envisaged in the agreement.
In addition, it found that only 80% of staff were using the biometric badges, and that there was still no central system for using data from the badges to check the number of hours worked.
The investigating magistrates of the Cour des comptes pointed out that France was an exception in Europe in giving air traffic controllers fonctionnaire status. In countries where the service has been privatised, it said, both wages and investment in the sector were higher.
Other cases where services previously managed by fonctionnaires had been successfully privatised in France include France Télécom (now Orange), La Poste, and agencies supplying the army, the magistrates noted.
“These reforms usually started by transferring the bodies into an autonomous legal structure, like a private company, and should be considered by a serious study,” the magistrates wrote.
Although the Cour des comptes report was widely covered in French media, political reaction has been minimal, raising questions over what action, if any, the government will take.
