Will the French transit strikes affect your plans for Champagne Week?

You’ve heard about the Air France strikes and the rail strikes in France – and some of you are worried about how they might affect your trip to the Champagne region during Champagne Week.

Here are the facts without hysteria or hyperbole:

The strikes affecting the Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) will affect RAIL TRAVEL on the following dates:

Friday 13th April
Saturday 14th April
Wednesday 18th April
Thursday 19th April
Monday 23rd April
Tuesday 24th April

It is in your best interest to avoid rail travel on any one of those days. Yes, there will be delays and cancelations and frustrations…on those specific six days. If you can avoid travelling by train on one of those days, you’ll be very happy you did. If you are travelling via train on any other day during normal business hours***, you should be absolutely fine. (*** It is best to avoid late night trains the day before a strike or early morning trains the day following a strike.)

If you like to live on the edge and absolutely insist on taking the train on one of the days of the strike, the SNCF announces which trains will be running on the day in question the night before at 17:00 via their website: https://www.oui.sncf/train/greve.

For those passengers taking the Eurostar between London St Pancras and Paris Gare du Nord, 80% of trains are scheduled to operate normally on Friday 13^th April and Saturday 14^th April. https://www.eurostar.com/

The strikes affecting Air France will affect those people travelling on Air France flights on the following dates:

Tuesday 10th April
Wednesday 11th April
Tuesday 17th April
Wednesday 18th April
Monday 23rd April
Tuesday 24th April

Those travelling on those days on other airlines should not be affected although pay attention to code shares. Flights booked on Delta, Alitalia, KLM, Aeroflot, Korean Air, Aeromexico, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Aerolíneas Argentinas, Air Europa, Czech Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Kenya Airways, MEA Middle East Airways, Saudia, Tarom, Vietnam Airlines or Xiamen Air could be operated by Air France. Check with your airline directly – and do it now. If your flight is not scheduled to be operated by Air France, you should be fine. https://www.airfrance.fr/FR/en/common/page_flottante/hp/news-air-traffic-air-france.htm

All other airlines are scheduled to operate normally on the days of the Air France strike.

The are no strikes planned for air traffic controllers or baggage handlers or taxi drivers or Uber drivers.

The Paris métro is scheduled to function normally throughout the entire month of April 2018.

Certain unions of the Régie autonome des transports parisiens (RATP) will be striking on the following dates:

Tuesday 10th April
Wednesday 11th April
Thursday 12th April
Thursday 19th April

This will affect the RER A, RER B, RER C, RER D and RER E commuter rail only. Most visitors will only be affected if they are taking the RER B between Paris-CDG airport and Paris Gare du Nord. https://www.ratp.fr/trafic-rer