In the midst of widespread transportation upheaval, Spain has taken tough measures against a Ryanair cabin crew strike by making it unlawful for the majority of employees to take a sick day.
Today is the first of the budget airline’s six strike days, but few people are paying attention as passengers across Europe experience hours-long delays as a result of staff shortages.
By saying it would continue all of its regular flights from Spain despite the industrial action, the airline infuriated unions while appeasing passengers.
Ester Peyro, a spokeswoman for the Syndicated Workers Union (USO), acknowledged this morning that the strike was not having much of an impact and charged Ryanair of breaking the law by continuing its regular operation.
Because of measures taken by the Spanish government before to the first strike day, depending on the destination, between 36 and 82 percent of flights were safeguarded as required “minimum services.”
Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair, predicted there wouldn’t be any flight cancellations yesterday, saying: “We expect stoppages will not have a great follow-up and that the impact will be small.”
He continued, “Even if cabin staff are going on strike, they have to operate such flights by law,” in reference to the protected flights.
If you put on a protected flight while on strike, you must fly that flight. Many of our employees prefer to carry on with their regular jobs.
‘Ryanair has decided that all the flights it was intending to fly today from any of its bases in Spain were minimum services,’ added Mrs. Peyro, acknowledging that the cabin staff showed up to work this morning and yesterday morning (FRI).
“It hasn’t respected the percentages of flights that weren’t required to have minimal services,” someone said.
‘It has summoned all its workforce in Spain as minimum services and they have to respect that order because if not they’ll be fired the following day.
‘Basically all Ryanair has done is breach the right of workers to strike, workers that after five years of protests and negotiations and industrial action still endure working conditions that do not respect Spanish legislation.’
After receiving a list of the flights the low-cost airline intended to operate, the USO and Sitcpla unions claimed late yesterday or on Thursday that they had notified Ryanair in writing that it was in violation of the Spanish Ministry of Transport’s “minimum services” decree for the three-day strike that started at midnight.
“Ryanair is sending us an illegal order,” the USO declared in a statement, “clearly contravening the Ministry of Transport decree, which was already an abusive decree.”
“As workers, we feel completely betrayed by the state of law in which we supposedly live,” said Manuel Lodeiro, a spokesman for Sitcpla.
No state agency guards our basic rights.
For the other Spanish strike days on June 30 and July 1 and 2, Ryanair is anticipated to call all cabin crew and attempt to operate all of its flights. Ryanair has been contacted for comment regarding the union allegations.
Strikes were called to put pressure on the business to discuss working conditions in a collective bargaining agreement.
Employees of EasyJet, which has bases at Malaga and Palma airports in Spain, are planning to strike on July 1-3, 15-17, and 29-31.
According to the USO union, which 80 percent of these workers are a part of, flight attendants in Spain are asking for a 40 percent raise in their base pay.
Additionally threatening to strike are hauliers in Spain, raising the possibility of hotel shortages during the busiest summer months.
During a previous lorry drivers’ strike in March, hotel managers acknowledged that supplies were running low, and supermarkets were left without a number of products, including meat and fish, toward the end of the three-week strike over high fuel prices and unfavorable working conditions.
As Europe’s bustling summer travel season gets off, travelers are experiencing chaotic airport scenes, including protracted delays, canceled flights, and anxiety over misplaced bags.
The busiest airport in the Netherlands, Schiphol, is reducing flight schedules due to an excess of airline seats that exceeds the daily capacity of security personnel. KLM, a Dutch airline, issued an apology for leaving travelers stranded there this month.
Ben Smith, CEO of airline partnership Air France-KLM, said on Thursday that it might take months before Schiphol has enough workers to relieve the strain.
Gatwick and Heathrow airports in London are requesting a flight number cap from the airlines. To minimize last-minute cancellations and in reaction to capacity restrictions at Gatwick and Schiphol, low-cost airline easyJet is cancelling hundreds of summer flights.
In a letter to Ireland’s transport minister, North American airlines urged him to take swift action to address “severe delays” at Dublin’s airport.
According to figures from aviation consultancy Cirium, approximately 2,000 flights from major continental European airports were canceled during one week this month, with Schiphol accounting for nearly 9%.
Cirium said that 376 more flights from U.K. airports were canceled, with Heathrow accounting for 28% of those.
Similar events occurred in the United States, when airlines over two days last week cancelled thousands of flights due to terrible weather, just as the number of summer travelers was increasing.
According to Julia Lo Bue-Said, CEO of the Advantage Travel Group, which represents roughly 350 UK travel agents, “people are traveling in the vast majority of cases.” She added that due to a lack of people, processing security checks for newly hired employees is taking much longer.
It also means that “when things go wrong, they’re going terribly wrong,” she added, because “they’re all generating bottlenecks in the system.”
The cancellation of COVID-19 screenings for travelers entering the United States under the Biden administration has increased the demand for transatlantic travel. After the rule was abandoned this month, Bue-Said claimed that the agents for her organization saw an increase in U.S. bookings.
The strengthening of the dollar against the euro and pound is also a consideration for Americans traveling to Europe because it lowers the cost of lodging and dining.
Last week, a Heathrow terminal’s floor was covered in a sea of unclaimed bags. On Monday, the airport ordered airlines to cancel 10% of flights at two terminals due to technical issues with the baggage system, which would affect around 5,000 passengers.
According to the airport, “a handful of travelers” may have left without their luggage.
Marlena Spieler, a cookbook author, spent three hours going through passport control this month on her way back to London from Stockholm.
The baggage room was “a madhouse, with heaps of suitcases everywhere,” according to Spieler, 73, who spent at least another hour and a half looking for her belongings there.
Before realizing her bag was on a carousel, she was about to give up. She has another trip to Greece scheduled in a few weeks, but she is anxious about heading to the airport once more.
Honestly, I’m worried about my safety. Is this something I can handle? Player stated via email.
This summer, in Sweden, the security checkpoint lineups at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport were so lengthy that many travelers were arriving more than five hours before scheduled departure.
As a result of the large number of people arriving early, authorities are turning away passengers who arrive more than three hours before their departure to reduce congestion.
The line to one of the checkpoints Monday was more than 100 meters (328 feet) long, despite modest improvements.
While waiting in line to check their bags, four young German women requested fellow travelers if they might go ahead of them since they were worried about missing their trip to Hamburg. They purchased fast-track passes after they arrived to skip the lengthy security line.
Before hurrying to the fast-track lane, Lina Wiele, 19, said that she hadn’t experienced exactly the same amount of pandemonium at other airports, “not like that, I guess.”
During the epidemic, thousands of pilots, cabin crew, baggage handlers, and other aviation industry professionals lost their jobs, and now there aren’t enough to handle the uptick in travel.
According to Willie Walsh, president of the International Air Transport Association, “certain airlines are struggling because I think they were expected to recover personnel levels quicker than they’ve been able to achieve.”
Walsh stated this week in Qatar at the annual conference of the airline trade organization that the post-pandemic staff shortfall is not specific to the airline business.
Airlines have not been able to provide their staff the same flexibility as other businesses, which presents a challenge for us, he said. Many of the positions cannot be performed remotely. “We need workers to help load bags and assist passengers, as well as pilots and cabin crew, in order to run the aircraft.”
Joost van Doesburg of the FNV union, which represents the majority of staff at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, claimed that laid-off aviation workers “had found other positions with greater earnings, with more permanent contracts.” Everyone wants to travel once more, but no one wants to work at the airport.
The CEO of Europe’s largest carrier and budget airline, Ryanair, issued a warning that flight cancellations and delays would persist “all through the summer.”
According to Michael O’Leary, passengers may anticipate a “less-than-satisfactory encounter.”
Despite not yet experiencing significant issues, certain airports throughout Europe are prepared. According to spokesperson Klara Diviskova, the Vaclav Havel international airport in Prague anticipates a surge in travelers starting the following week and continuing through July, “when we can suffer a shortfall of workers, notably during the security checks.”
Despite a recruitment push, she said that the airport still lacks “dozens of personnel.”
Problems are also being caused by labor unrest.
A three-day strike in Belgium, beginning on Thursday, will result in the cancellation of roughly 315 flights, affecting about 40,000 customers, according to Brussels Airlines.
Heathrow ground personnel and check-in agents for British Airways decided to strike on Thursday over salary. Their unions predicted it will happen this summer, though no specific dates have been agreed.
This month, there were two days of strikes at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, one by security officers and the other by airport workers who claim their pay is not keeping up with inflation. The second day, 25% of flights were canceled.
Although Smith, the airline’s CEO, said it’s not anticipated to affect operations, some Air France pilots are planning a walkout on Saturday, alleging that crew tiredness is endangering flight security. On July 1, airport employees promise a further strike over pay.
According to Jan Bezdek, spokesman for Czech travel operator CK Fischer, which has already sold more vacation packages this year than before the pandemic, the airport issues are not going to deter people from traveling by air.
What is evident, according to Bezdek, is that individuals cannot endure having to wait to travel following the outbreak. Any issues at airports are unlikely to change that,