Comments on: France Train Strikes: How to know if you’re affected and how to change tickets

By: Craig Nelson

Craig Nelson — Wed, 30 May 2018 12:08:51 +0000

Hi Peggy,
The train strike should not affect travel in and out of the Paris airports. But always check ahead on the official site for Paris airports — http://www.parisaeroport.fr/en/homepage. Bon voyage!

By: Peggy

Peggy — Mon, 28 May 2018 16:05:59 +0000

I’ll be in Paris June 17 to fly out of CDG airport on the 19th. Is the train strike likely to cause me issues or are there busses to CDG from around Paris?

By: Mary Krawitt

Mary Krawitt — Mon, 14 May 2018 18:13:59 +0000

what about Eurostar on the 27 June. Very very upsetting when people have plans made and every day they are on trains or planes wonderful Air France and France Rail is on strike. Losing alot of business I know and neither side cares.

Will this strike affect Eurostar? if so I will happily book British Air from Paris to Londond of would the parties involved like to wait until the day before to decide.? Never been a fan of unions- remember they began to help the sweat shops- these companies are hardly sweat shops. If they dont like their jobs let them get another. And by the way- I am a travel consultant with major company and book alot to France.

By: Srisa HEFFERNAN

Srisa HEFFERNAN — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 09:54:43 +0000

I made my bookings before the strike was announced, and with them my hotel bookings also. So imagine my annoyance when i discovered that both days of travel Paris 》Turin and then Turin 》 Paris fell on strike days and the discovery a day before my travel that my train was cancelled.
So i took myself off to Gare Montparnasse to exchange the first trip- at that stage it was the only one i knew had been cancelled.
They exchanged it at no cost, all i had to do was take an early train from Paris to Basel then onto Milan, and finally a 5 minute dash for a train to Turin. HALLELUJAH i made it. Only 9 1/2hrs..
4 days into my weeks holiday in Italy i get a message that my train back to paris is cancelled. This is where the fun begins. I tried to call them to exchange my ticket numerous times. My french is appalling so first i tried to speak English… she hung up on me.
The next lady told me it was impossible, and that they could only refund the cost because i was out of france so it was impossible for me to pick up my new ticket and i had the borne libre service- when i told her that really wasnt good enough as it would leave me hundreds of euros out of pocket for a 29€ ticket she hung up on me.
The third lady i finally managed to speak to just told me to take the 12.23 train from Milan to Geneva and change there for Paris.
So here i am sitting in Milano Centrale nervously expecting to either get kicked off, or have lots of explaining to do to the Swiss officials…

By: Susan Mellups

Susan Mellups — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 16:05:19 +0000

Barcelona to Avignon 20 April 2018 not a strike day. I saw the day before that our 3 trains were cancelled and went to BCN SANTS to get information. The clerk , Marco, swore that our trains were running on Friday. There was no chance to cancel or upsell to the later TGV run by Renfe because our ticket was endorsed on SNCF, sold by raileurope who never answered my urgent email.
Despite this we went to the station a half hour early and our first ticket got us onto the platform 5.. it was BCN toGirona.
Sitting on platform 6 was a French TGV TO PARIS. I spoke to the conductor who said he could not authorize anything. Only the train manager could do that. He would arrive minutes before the departure.
Happily I speak French. The conductor said “Get on the train and wait for him there”. We never saw the conductor or any official from there to Nîmes. The train filled more than capacity in Girona so we shared seats with a Canadian family and took turns standing. By the time we disembarked there were hundreds of extras in the aisles and on the stairs.
In Nîmes our ongoing connx was cancelled and we waited 2 hrs for the next train. Again, no officials, train crowded.
This was a none strike day.
Lesson: Renfe in Spain is very poor on customer service, has very poor attitude. The lines for next day tickets (take a number, sitand wait) was 100 people long..count on over an hour wait. The same day line was about ten people long (about 10:30am)
My advice:if you can get onto the platform just get on the train you want. This happened to me once between CDG and Avignon…gobs of riders, no ticket takers.