Every strike we’ve covered this year has had an end date you could see from the start: Rome’s 24-hour walkout, a single bad Sunday. Belgium’s own wildcat ATC action in June, two waves in one day. Charleroi isn’t that. Skeyes air traffic controllers are on strike every night from 22:00 to 08:00, for 24 consecutive nights, from September 16 through October 10 — a walkout measured in weeks, not hours.

The union notice landed after five rounds of talks between skeyes and controller unions went nowhere. The dispute is over night-shift pay, and it’s already done damage: 44 flights cancelled and more than 7,000 passengers affected within the first 24 hours alone. If you’re flying in or out of Brussels South Charleroi Airport (CRL) — Ryanair’s biggest Belgian base — between now and October 10, this is the guide to read before you assume “my flight’s not at night, I’m fine.”

Quick Verdict

Factor	Detail
Strike window	22:00–08:00, every night
Dates	September 16 – October 10, 2026 (24 nights)
Called by	SLFP/VSOA and CSC unions, after 5 failed rounds of talks with skeyes
Dispute	Night-shift pay allowance, tied to the Namur digital tower rollout
Flights at risk (skeyes estimate)	Up to 832 movements — 487 morning, 345 night
Night 1 damage	44 flights cancelled, 7,000+ passengers affected
Airline hit hardest	Ryanair — CRL is its largest Belgian base
Cash compensation (EU261)	Unlikely — ATC strikes are extraordinary circumstances
Still owed regardless	Refund or rerouting, plus meals/hotel if stranded

The trap: a daytime flight isn’t automatically safe. Aircraft and crews that can’t get back into Charleroi overnight cause cancellations well after 08:00.

Why Charleroi’s Controllers Walked Out

This isn’t a pay dispute in the abstract sense of “we want more money.” It’s specifically about night work, and specifically about parity. Controllers at Charleroi say they get no dedicated night allowance despite the airport handling delayed arrivals well past its official closing time. Skeyes disagrees, arguing Charleroi is officially closed overnight and that the shift allowance controllers already receive tops €1,000. Unions want that allowance raised to 160% of its current level — the same rate, they say, that applies at other units, including Liège.

The backdrop matters too. This grievance is tied to skeyes’ rollout of a digital control tower in Namur, which is set to manage air traffic for both Charleroi and Liège remotely. That’s the same infrastructure shift behind Belgium’s wildcat ATC strikes back in June, though the June action was a spontaneous walkout over the Namur staffing model itself, not a formal, dated pay dispute like this one. Different grievance, same root project. Skeyes has been managing this transition badly enough, twice now, that it’s worth watching whatever else comes out of Namur before this year is over.

Five rounds of negotiation between skeyes and the SLFP/VSOA and CSC unions failed to close the gap, and the unions filed formal strike notice — which is the part that separates this from June’s spontaneous walkouts. This one was scheduled, announced, and is running exactly as filed: every night, for over three weeks straight.

The Numbers: 832 Flights at Risk, 44 Already Gone

Skeyes’ own estimate puts up to 832 flight movements at risk across the full strike period — 487 of those in the morning window, 345 overnight, according to reporting on the airport’s disruption estimate. That’s an estimate of exposure, not a guaranteed cancellation count. But night one gave a preview of what “exposure” actually looks like on the ground: 44 flights cancelled and more than 7,000 passengers affected between the evening of September 16 and 8 a.m. on September 17.

Ryanair took the brunt of it. The carrier cancelled 14 rotations starting at 16:10 on day one — outbound and return legs both, since several return flights were scheduled to land at Charleroi after the 22:00 strike start — and 8 early departures on September 17 between 06:25 and 07:20. Routes hit included Helsinki, Valencia, Barcelona, Kaunas, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca, Pisa, and Venice. RTBF’s rolling coverage has the fuller list, and it reads like most of Ryanair’s Charleroi network, not one or two unlucky routes.

Why Are Morning Flights Getting Cancelled After the Strike Ends at 08:00?

Morning flights get cancelled after an overnight strike ends because the aircraft and crew scheduled to fly them were never in position to begin with. If a plane can’t land at Charleroi overnight, it isn’t there for the 06:00 departure that was supposed to use it. The strike’s official end time doesn’t restart the schedule from zero — it just stops adding new damage.

That knock-on effect is the whole reason this strike is worse than its own strike hours suggest:

1. The plane is in the wrong city. An aircraft that should have landed at CRL overnight is sitting wherever it diverted to instead, and something else needs that airframe at 06:00.
2. The crew is out of position, or timed out. Pilots and cabin crew have legal duty-hour limits. A crew that sat on the ground overnight waiting for a slot may not be legal to fly the next rotation even once the strike window closes.
3. Charleroi’s point-to-point model has no slack to absorb it. Unlike a hub carrier that can reroute a spare aircraft from elsewhere in its network, Ryanair’s CRL operation runs tight, back-to-back rotations. One missed overnight slot ripples into the next several departures.

Three-and-a-half weeks of that, every single night, is a different animal than a single bad Sunday. Rome’s 24-hour strike created one day of chaos with a clean recovery. Charleroi doesn’t get a clean recovery night, because the next strike window starts before the previous one’s backlog has cleared.

Is This Different From the Belgium ATC Strike in June?

Yes, in the ways that matter for your booking. June’s Skeyes action was two unannounced wildcat walkouts in a single day, hitting all five Belgian airports with zero notice. This is a formally filed strike, confined to Charleroi, running on a published schedule you can actually plan around. That’s arguably the one mercy here — you know exactly which hours are exposed, night after night, instead of guessing whether controllers will walk out again tomorrow.

It doesn’t make the disruption smaller. It makes it more predictable, which is worth something if you’re deciding whether to book a flight during this window at all. A 6 a.m. departure from Charleroi between now and October 10 carries real risk even though it’s technically outside the strike hours. A 10 a.m. or later departure is safer, but “safer” isn’t “safe” on a route this exposed.

Are You Owed Compensation?

Work through it the same way you would any ATC-driven disruption:

Air traffic controllers aren’t employed by the airline. Under EU Regulation 261/2004, that puts an ATC strike squarely inside “extraordinary circumstances” — the exemption that blocks the €250–€600 cash compensation tier. It doesn’t matter that this strike was formally announced rather than spontaneous, the way June’s wildcat action was; being lawful or unlawful isn’t the legal test. Being outside the airline’s control is, and skeyes’ staff are.

What survives regardless of that exemption:

• A full refund or free rerouting to your final destination — your choice, not the airline’s.
• Meals and refreshments once you’ve been waiting two or more hours.
• Hotel accommodation and transport to it, if you’re stuck overnight because of a cancelled or rebooked flight.

Ryanair will default to offering its own next available seat. If that’s days out — plausible, given how compressed CRL’s schedule already is — ask for the cash refund explicitly and book elsewhere yourself. The EU261 rules and how they’re actually enforced are worth a full read if you want the complete framework before you’re arguing with a gate agent, and the airline delay compensation and travel insurance guide covers how to run a longshot claim through AirHelp or Skycop in case your specific cancellation gets misclassified.

Your Action Plan Before You Fly Charleroi This Month

1. Don’t trust “my flight’s at 11 a.m., I’m outside the strike window.” Check whether the inbound aircraft was scheduled to arrive overnight. If it was, your morning departure inherits the previous night’s disruption.
2. Check your flight status the night before, not the morning of. Cancellations tied to overnight strike action are often confirmed hours ahead of the scheduled departure.
3. If you’re on Ryanair, watch the app for a waiver or rebooking notice rather than calling first. Ryanair has been pushing rebooking options directly through the app during this run of cancellations.
4. Ask for a cash refund, not a travel voucher, if your flight is cancelled. Say the word explicitly — the default offer and your legal entitlement aren’t the same thing.
5. Cross-check any rebooked itinerary against Google Flights before accepting it. On a route this squeezed, the first available seat and the fastest routing aren’t always the same flight.
6. Keep every receipt for meals, transport, or a hotel you pay for out of pocket. A credit card trip delay benefit can reimburse those costs independently of whatever Ryanair eventually processes.
7. If your trip has any flexibility, avoid booking new Charleroi departures before 09:00 through October 10. The strike technically ends at 08:00 each morning, but the backlog it leaves behind doesn’t respect that clock.

The Bottom Line

Three and a half weeks of nightly ATC strikes is a longer, uglier disruption than anything else on this site’s strike coverage this year, precisely because it never gets a clean recovery night. Skeyes and its unions are 24 nights apart from a resolution, over a pay dispute that’s been five negotiating rounds deep without movement. If you’re flying Charleroi before October 10, plan around more than the 22:00–08:00 window on the calendar — plan around the morning after it, too. Cash compensation almost certainly isn’t coming. A refund, a rerouting, and duty-of-care coverage are, and knowing to ask for them explicitly is the difference between a ruined trip and an annoying one.

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Information current as of September 17, 2026. Strike scope and cancellation counts are changing daily — check directly with your airline and Brussels South Charleroi Airport before you travel.