French airline staff walk out

PARIS - Air France ground staff disrupted flights during a brief strike yesterday, blocking access to a runway at Orly airport. The staff, protesting against plans for the state airline's first-ever redundancies, struck for three hours and 40 minutes, writes Julian Nundy.

At Paris's main Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, more than 600 strikers demonstrated on roads leading to the Air France terminal, slowing road traffic. At Orly, staff blocked taxiways to a runway, delaying about a dozen flights. Other protests were staged at Marseilles and Nice airports.

The strike was called after Bernard Attali, the airline's chief executive, announced that 250 staff would be laid off to complete a plan for a reduction of 1,900 jobs this year.