Travelers heading to and from Paris faced another bruising day as a cluster of airlines, including RwandAir, Iberia, HOP!, and Air France, racked up 15 flight cancellations and more than 100 delays across the French capital’s two main airports. The disruption, centered on Paris Charles de Gaulle and Paris Orly on February 12, 2026, is the latest flashpoint in a winter of steady strain on Europe’s aviation network, where staff shortages, wintry weather, and operational bottlenecks have repeatedly upended itineraries. For passengers, the impact is immediate and personal: missed connections, nights spent on terminal benches, and hastily improvised reroutings that can turn a two hour hop into a daylong odyssey.
Paris Hubs Under Pressure
Paris Charles de Gaulle and Paris Orly sit at the heart of France’s air transport system, funnelling millions of passengers a month between Europe, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. On February 12, these hubs again demonstrated how quickly a localized problem can ripple across international networks. According to operational tallies, a total of 15 flights operated by RwandAir, Iberia, HOP!, and Air France were cancelled, while more than 100 others ran late, many of them by an hour or more. That translated into extended queues at check in, crowded boarding gates, and slow moving security lanes as departure boards flickered with revised times.
At Charles de Gaulle, the city’s primary long haul gateway, the bulk of delays and cancellations were attributed to Air France, which maintains an extensive network of European feeders and intercontinental connections through its terminals. Smaller but still significant impacts were reported for RwandAir, Iberia, and HOP!, each of which operates key niche or regional links into Paris. Orly, the secondary airport favored by many domestic and regional services, also logged cancellations and a cluster of delays for Air France flights, compounding pressure on the region’s already stretched infrastructure.
The timing is particularly sensitive for Paris. The city continues to manage heightened security and operational demands, while preparing for a heavier than usual calendar of events and peak travel periods later in the year. Any sign of fragility in its aviation backbone raises concerns among tourism officials and corporate travel planners who depend on predictable access to one of Europe’s most visited cities.
Which Airlines Were Hit and How
The raw numbers from the day tell a story of uneven impact across the carriers caught up in the Paris gridlock. Air France, as the dominant operator at both Charles de Gaulle and Orly, recorded the highest absolute number of cancellations and delays. Eight of its flights at Charles de Gaulle were cancelled outright, along with two more at Orly. In addition, more than 100 Air France services were delayed across the two airports, affecting both domestic sectors and key regional and European routes. For many passengers, even a short delay on a feeder service proved enough to break onward connections.
RwandAir, which links Kigali to Paris and connects African travelers onward into Europe, cancelled two flights and reported one delay, a small number in absolute terms yet representing a high proportion of its total Paris operations for the day. For affected passengers, especially those beginning long haul journeys or traveling for critical business or family reasons, the impact was substantial. Iberia, Spain’s flag carrier, logged two cancellations and two delays on its Paris services, which connect the French capital to Madrid and onward routes into Latin America. Regional French carrier HOP! reported three cancellations at Charles de Gaulle and additional delays, chipping away at the punctuality of the short haul network that feeds larger hubs.
Altogether, these 15 cancellations and over 100 delays formed a mosaic of disruption that touched travelers from across Europe, Africa, and beyond. While the overall percentages may look modest when set against the hundreds of daily movements in Paris, the concentration of problems on already busy rotations amplified their effect. Flights operating close to capacity left fewer spare seats for rebooking, and crews ran up against duty time limits, making schedule recovery more complicated as the day wore on.
Causes Behind the Latest Wave of Disruption
The February 12 turmoil in Paris did not arise in isolation. It followed several weeks of mounting strain across European skies, with France often at the epicenter. In early February, a two day strike by French air traffic control unions led to widespread cancellations and delays across the country, as airlines were instructed to trim schedules at key airports. Even after the strike formally ended, residual effects lingered in crew planning and aircraft rotations, leaving thinner margins for error. At the same time, bouts of winter fog and low visibility repeatedly constrained runway capacity at Charles de Gaulle and Orly, lengthening separation times between arrivals and departures.
Operational reports in recent days have also pointed to underlying staffing pinch points in France’s ground handling and airport services. On several occasions this month, Paris airports registered hundreds of delays even when cancellations remained relatively low, a pattern consistent with shortfalls among ramp, baggage, and security teams. When these human resource issues coincide with weather challenges or technical hitches, delays can mount rapidly. Aircraft arrive late into Paris, turnarounds stretch beyond scheduled windows, and subsequent departures push further into the day.
Broader European dynamics are adding another layer of complexity. On February 5, for example, airports in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and other countries collectively logged more than two thousand delays and dozens of cancellations as winter weather and staffing challenges swept the continent. Paris Charles de Gaulle featured prominently in those statistics, indicating that airlines were already managing a delicate balance between demand and operational resilience. The events of February 12 appear to be another chapter in the same story, where minor shocks cascade through networks that lack sufficient slack.
Passenger Experience: Missed Connections and Frayed Nerves
For travelers on the ground, the statistics translated into long, often frustrating hours at the airport. At Charles de Gaulle, passengers awaiting Air France and Iberia departures reported repeated gate changes and rolling departure time revisions as operations teams worked to reshuffle aircraft and crews. Those bound for long haul destinations were particularly anxious, knowing that a missed connection in Paris might mean a forced overnight stay or an extended detour via another European hub.
RwandAir customers felt the pressure in a different way. With only a limited number of weekly flights linking Kigali and Paris, a cancellation can mean a delay measured not in hours but in days. Many affected passengers scrambled to secure seats via other African or European gateways, often at short notice and higher cost. For some, particularly those traveling on tight visas or non flexible tickets, options were constrained and stress levels high.
At Orly, where Air France and HOP! concentrate many domestic and regional services, the impact fell heavily on commuters and short haul business travelers. Morning cancellations and delays disrupted day return plans, while evening backlogs left terminals crowded with passengers vying for scarce remaining seats. Airline staff and information screens urged travelers to stay informed via mobile apps, but for many the reality was a succession of queues at service desks and improvisation over accommodation and onward travel.
Knock On Effects Across Europe and Beyond
Paris’s role as a major European hub means that disruption in the French capital rarely remains a local affair. Cancellations or extended delays on key feeder routes force airlines to reroute passengers through alternative hubs such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or London. In turn, those hubs face additional pressure as they absorb unscheduled demand and juggle aircraft positioning. In the current environment, where many European airports are already coping with their own operational challenges and weather related constraints, spare capacity is limited.
The Paris cancellations involving Iberia, for instance, had implications for travelers bound for Latin American destinations who were relying on smooth same day transfers via Madrid. Missed connections in either direction can result in passengers being stranded in transit cities overnight, with hotels and meals often arranged at the last minute. Similarly, RwandAir’s difficulties at Charles de Gaulle complicated onward connections into the wider Schengen area for passengers arriving from Africa, especially where tight layovers and visa formalities were concerned.
Beyond Europe, the knock on effects can extend even further. Delayed aircraft leaving Paris may arrive late into their next destination, setting off a chain of minor schedule adjustments that stretch well beyond French borders. Airlines try to mitigate this by swapping aircraft or reassigning crews, but the room for maneuver shrinks quickly when disruption is widespread. For global passengers, the end result can be a missed morning meeting in North America or a lost day of a long planned holiday in Asia.
What Travelers Can Realistically Do Right Now
For passengers flying into or out of Paris during this period of instability, preparation and flexibility have become essential. Airlines strongly encourage travelers to monitor their bookings frequently in the 24 hours before departure, using mobile apps or direct booking portals where updates tend to appear first. When cancellations or significant delays occur, rebooking options are often automatically proposed, but they can be snapped up quickly, particularly on popular routes with few alternative frequencies.
Arriving at the airport earlier than usual can help mitigate some of the stress. Longer security lines, crowded check in zones, and last minute gate changes are easier to navigate when time buffers are built in. For those with onward connections in Paris, leaving more generous layover times than the minimum suggested in booking engines is a prudent strategy, especially in winter months and during periods of known industrial or operational tension.
Travel experts also advise passengers to understand their rights under European air passenger protection rules, including potential entitlements to care, rerouting, and in some circumstances financial compensation. While not every disruption will qualify, particularly when events are attributed to extraordinary circumstances such as severe weather or air traffic control strikes, knowing the framework can help travelers negotiate more confidently at service desks and afterwards when filing claims. Keeping boarding passes, receipts, and records of delay times is critical in this regard.
Implications for France’s Travel and Tourism Outlook
The repeated bouts of disruption at Paris airports in early 2026 come at an awkward moment for France’s broader tourism strategy. The country continues to rebuild and expand its visitor economy, promoting new cultural events, regional destinations, and major international gatherings in the months ahead. Reliable air access to the capital is a cornerstone of those ambitions. When headlines focus on cancellations, delays, and stranded passengers, they risk denting confidence among both leisure and business travelers, some of whom may look to alternative gateways or itineraries.
Industry analysts note that isolated days of turmoil are not unusual in complex global aviation systems, particularly during winter. The concern in France lies more in the accumulation of events since the start of the year: weather induced disruptions, staffing bottlenecks, and industrial actions that have repeatedly tested the resilience of airport and airline operations. If such episodes continue through the spring and into peak summer, they could weigh on perceptions of France’s readiness to host large visitor flows without systematic disruption.
For now, tourism officials and airline executives alike are emphasizing steps being taken behind the scenes to reinforce staffing levels, refine contingency plans, and coordinate more closely between airports, carriers, and air navigation services. Whether those measures will be sufficient to head off future waves of cancellations and delays remains to be seen. In the meantime, travelers planning journeys through Paris in the coming weeks would be wise to build flexibility into their itineraries, staying attuned to evolving conditions as France’s aviation network works through another challenging season.