Two weeks of holidays opening on a strike notice
The 2026 Toussaint school holidays run from Saturday 17 October to Monday 2 November, the date classes resume. They are not staggered by zone: zones A, B and C all leave together, which concentrates demand on the same departure and return weekends across mainland France. The calendar was set by decree published in the Journal officiel in October 2025.
On 19 September, a joint union front bringing together UNSA PNC, SNPNC-FO, SNGAF, SNPL and UNAC filed a five-day national strike notice, covering flights operated from Saturday 17 October at 00:01 to Wednesday 21 October at 23:59, Paris time. It applies to flight deck and cabin crew at air transport and aerial work companies governed by French labour law.
The trigger is the reform of the rules allowing pensioners to combine a pension with paid work. The unions are asking for flight crew and their supplementary scheme, the CRPN — around 36,000 active members and 25,000 pensioners — to be excluded from it. At this stage no airline has announced cancellations: the number of flights affected will depend on turnout and on how far operators can reshuffle their schedules. The window to watch is known; its scale is not.
The fare survey: the step up sits on the first weekend
On most routes the two most expensive days are Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October — precisely when everyone leaves at once.
One documented example: on Paris-Algiers, Air Algérie is showing a one-way fare of around €381 on 16 October and €486 on 17 October, against roughly €140 from 22 October onwards. On a route like that, shifting departure by five days cuts the ticket to a third. The same mechanism repeats, at varying amplitudes, on routes to North Africa, Spain and Greece.
The windows still within reach
- 19 to 22 October: the trough of the first week, and the best ratio between the price paid and the holiday days left.
- A return shifted to 30 or 31 October rather than Sunday 1 November, the mass return day.
- Flights with a connection: they stay available longer than direct services, because they route through hubs served year-round.
- Malta and Cyprus: better served in October than the Canaries or Greece, and still around 20 °C.
On booking timing, the trade puts the sweet spot at six to eight weeks before departure — meaning now for a 17 October departure. On the most sought-after sun destinations, the gap between booking in August and booking after the summer is estimated at 15 to 30%.
Seat supply contracts in the middle of the holidays
What makes 2026 unusual: the holidays straddle the switch to winter schedules on 25 October. Airlines cut back certain direct links to southern Europe and the Mediterranean on that date, right in the heart of the two weeks.
The practical consequence: fewer direct flights, so fewer seats to spread across those that remain. To the Canaries, Morocco and Greece, some flights are already showing full from late September for school-holiday departures, and certain fares can triple within two months. How far it goes depends on the destination, the departure airport, the airline and the number of seats still open — it is not a uniform rule.
The useful reading for a family: on those three destinations the constraint is no longer price but availability. Waiting for a drop often means waiting for a flight that will no longer exist.
What the bookings already on file are saying
The Orchestra barometer for L'Écho touristique, which tracks bookings sold through agencies, gives the mood of the season: -3.2% in bookings for Toussaint 2026 departures compared with the same period in 2025. The decline is general, but unevenly spread.
- Mainland France: top destination in the Top 20, at -3.4%.
- Tunisia: second, and the most resilient of the three, down only 1%.
- Spain: third.
- Morocco: fifth, at -4.3%.
- Italy: seventh, up 17.9%.
- Albania: the strongest riser in the Top 20, at +237%.
A market edging down and a shrinking seat supply: the two effects partly cancel out. That is why fares are not soaring everywhere, but harden sharply on the routes where capacity falls away.
If your flight falls between 17 and 21 October
What to do now
- Check the flight status three days out, then the day before, on the airline's own site, and make sure the mobile number on the booking is current: cancellation notices go through it.
- Identify in advance the two or three fallback flights on the same route within the following twenty-four hours. If a flight is cancelled the airline must offer re-routing; turning up with a specific option speeds the conversation along.
- Keep the paperwork: boarding pass, the notice you received, expenses incurred. A claim is built on documents, not recollections.
- Pack the children's essentials in the cabin — water, snacks, a change of clothes, usual medicines — rather than in the hold: it is the only bag that stays with you if the flight goes sideways.
One legal point carries weight here: in a ruling of 23 March 2021 (case C-28/20), the Court of Justice of the European Union held that a strike by an airline's own staff, called by a union in compliance with statutory notice periods and over demands internal to the company, does not amount to an "extraordinary circumstance". The right to compensation is therefore not ruled out as a matter of principle — unlike an air traffic controllers' strike, which is external to the airline.
For anyone who has not booked yet, it comes down to three decisions: aim for the 19-22 October trough, accept a connection, and move quickly on the destinations where the 25 October switch closes the direct flights.