Air France strike in Paris moves into fourth day

PARIS -- French carrier Air France predicted more flight cancellations at Orly airport in Paris today as a strike by ground crews was to move into a fourth straight day.

Dozens of flights from Orly West terminal have been canceled since Friday, when ground crew teams walked off the job to show support for a colleague who was suspended in connection with a deadly accident.

About 50 of 170 scheduled flights were to be canceled at the terminal today, Air France said yesterday.

The strike has affected mainly domestic flights.

Crews were protesting the suspension of a colleague on duty when a flight attendant fell to her death Feb. 1 while trying to disembark from an Airbus A319 plane onto a mobile staircase on the Orly tarmac.

On Saturday, Air France chief executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta said the employee "had not respected" any of a number of security precautions that could have helped to avoid the accident.

Union leaders retorted that the airline had punished the employee before an investigation had been completed, and said Air France managers also shared part of the responsibility.

Patrick Devedjian, France's industry minister, yesterday called the strike "illegal and unacceptable" and insisted that Air France appeared to have acted properly by suspending the ground crew staffer.

"This is an illegal strike, begun without proper warnings, that is taking the public hostage," Devedjian said on Europe-1 radio. "A person was killed. It seems as though management had important reasons to judge that a serious error with enormous consequences had taken place."