Airline passengers across Europe could face 14,000 hours of delays over the next week, aviation authorities have warned, as a six-day French air traffic control strike begins on Tuesday.

Airlines were forced to cancel dozens of flights and warned of potential delays to all flights crossing French airspace.

Ryanair has said 26 flights to and from France will be cancelled on Tuesday, while Easy Jet said 28 flights had been cancelled, although none from UK airports. British Airways has cancelled three flights from Heathrow to Lyon, Toulouse and Marseille.

All three airlines said they would be making decisions day by day on the need for additional cancellations.

Eurocontrol, a European air safety organisation, estimated the action would cause 830,000 minutes, or almost 14,000 hours, of delays.

A similar walkout last year led to the cancellation of around 1,800 flights a day across Europe including scores of services to and from the UK.

There are estimated to be around 350 direct flights between Britain and France during the planned strike period.

Members of the two biggest air traffic controllers’ unions in France originally voted for a six-day strike from Tuesday in protest at budget cuts.

However, the scale of the disruption is expected to be less than originally feared, with one of the unions deciding to drop strike action.

The action has been timed ahead of a deadline on June 30 for France to present its five-year budget plans for aviation to Brussels.

A spokesman for easyJet said: “easyJet has been advised by the French DGAC of potential industrial action by employees of the Air Traffic Control in France this week. easyJet is disappointed at this unnecessary strike action which has the potential to cause considerable disruption and cancellations for passengers and airlines across Europe.

“Despite the fact that this disruption is beyond easyJet’s control we will do everything possible to minimise the inconvenience to our customers.

"We will proactively provide advice for our passengers through our website, text messages and flight tracker tool.”