The third of the four days of protests by Iberia’s ground handling staff continues normally at the airports and monitoring of 18.5% of the staff without a minimum service letter at noon, according to the airline, although with some incidents in the loading of suitcases and the possibility of a new strike.
The airline has indicated this Sunday that punctuality stands at 86% on the network at midday, somewhat above the 83% recorded late the previous day.
“All the flights have left, despite the difficulties caused by the strike, there is fluidity,” shared Iberia’s corporate director, Juan Cierco, from the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport.
Iberia and its subsidiaries have 539 flights scheduled for today, a busy day at the airports as it is the main return journey after the Christmas holidays.
Precisely, the unions UGT, CCOO and USO predict “a significant problem” with passengers’ luggage, as suitcases stranded in the two previous days of the strike accumulate and may not be loaded this Sunday.
UGT indicated on Saturday that 750 suitcases were left unloaded at the airports of origin, to which Iberia has responded that a large part of that luggage is in the process of being sent to their respective destinations via road or alternative flights.
Likewise, the airline has pointed out that it is working to regularize the luggage that could not be loaded on Saturday at the airports of Barcelona, ??Bilbao and Gran Canaria, the most affected by the ground assistance protest.
Iberia has pointed out that only one plane between Bilbao and Palma de Mallorca would have left without suitcases on the third day of the strike.
According to the unions, Vueling would be the most affected company, as it focuses its operations on the airfields that register the highest number of incidents.
The three unions calling for the protest have stressed that their objective is for Iberia to maintain assistance for its own aircraft, despite having lost the competitions of the airport manager Aena that guaranteed the provision of this service in full at the airports.
USO – which calls for the protest separately from UGT and CCOO – fears that the labor rights of “handling” employees will be endangered with their incorporation into the companies that won the tenders, especially after “reducing their salary and losing bonuses” to that Iberia could prevail in the bankruptcy proceedings.
The airline has assured that “social issues are guaranteed” and that staff subrogation – changing from one company to another – is part of the agreement reached with the unions years ago, in the words of Cierco.
If their requests are not met, the labor organizations will once again call for a new assistance service strike in the coming weeks, although they have stressed that “their intention is to continue with the negotiations”, despite the fact that at the moment there is no date for restart them.
UGT and CCOO have revealed that the aircraft maintenance and repair services and management of this sector would also be included in the protests, given the unions’ fear of “their possible sale by Iberia.”
Iberia has highlighted that minimum services are fulfilled “normally” in the Spanish air infrastructure on the third day of protests by handling workers.
The stipulated minimum services reach 100% of workers in some airports, while in others they are around 80%, according to aircraft ground handling unions.
CCOO and UGT will denounce Iberia for the “abusive” percentage of minimum services, in the words of the labor organizations, and for the “use of subcontractors to transport by road” the suitcases that were left at the Bilbao airport.
USO will also do so by not providing information on the flights protected by the minimum services and the employees assigned to them, since it senses that this could violate freedom of association.
Iberia does not foresee cancellations on January 7 due to the strike, except in adverse weather conditions.
However, passengers on a flight between Gran Canaria and Bilbao on the night of January 6 had to spend the night in Barcelona and then travel by bus to the Basque city, due to the late departure of the aircraft due to delays in loading the suitcases.
The four days of scheduled protests caused Iberia to cancel 444 trips in advance – 270 from the airline itself, 64 from Iberia Express and 110 from Air Nostrum – a decision that has affected approximately 45,000 passengers.
Iberia’s ground services subsidiary provides service to more than 90 airlines and operates in 29 Spanish airports where it provides this service.
The handling staff is made up of approximately 8,000 workers.
