PARIS – Paris airport operator Aeroports de Paris (ADP) estimates it lost about 470,000 passengers in the January to March period because of strikes against French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, the company said on Monday.

In March alone, passenger losses were around 390,000, it estimated.

Mr Macron on Saturday signed into law a deeply unpopular Bill to raise the state pension age, infuriating unions that called for months of mass protests, which started in January, to continue.

Nevertheless, ADP said passenger traffic at its Paris airports rose 44.6 per cent year on year in the first quarter to 21 million passengers, standing at 88.7 per cent of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

Excluding the impact of the strikes, traffic would have been up 47.8 per cent, it estimated, at 90.7 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

For the whole network, which includes airports in Turkey and India, among others, traffic rose 45.1 per cent over the quarter to 69.4 million passengers, or 95.2 per cent of 2019 levels.

In March alone, Paris airports welcomed 7.4 million passengers. REUTERS