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A traveller walks in the Terminal 2 corridors of the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport with Air France airplanes in the background, in the northeastern outskirts of Paris on Sept. 16.JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP/Getty Images

Many domestic and some international flights were cancelled in France Friday as air traffic controllers went on a national strike over pay and recruitment issues.

French civil aviation authority DGAC warned that domestic traffic would be “severely disrupted” with many flights cancelled and other experiencing long delays. Travellers have been advised to postpone their trip if possible.

Air France said it has cancelled 55% of its short- and medium-haul flights and 10% of its long-haul flights. The company could not rule out further delays and last-minute cancellations, it said in a statement.

Other companies operating in France, including Ryanair, Easyjet and Volotea, have also cancelled flights.

Mamadou Soure, 42, arrived Friday morning at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport from Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

“We were supposed to take a flight to Milan at 9:30 a.m. but it was cancelled, but thank God we found a flight at 1:30 p.m. for Turin. We’ll see if we can make it to Milan from there,” he said.

Maria Oudon, from Orlando, Florida, was relieved to see her flight mentioned as “on time” on the airport’s board. “We did spend all night worrying about it because they said to possibly change your flight or have other options. And we still came because we had to take our daughter to school,” she said.

France’s main union of air traffic controllers, the SNCTA, called the one-day strike to demand higher pay amid soaring inflation and demanding more staff to be hired in the coming years.

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