Ryanair cabin crew are called for a new strike starting this Monday, the third round of strikes so far this summer, and which will last until January 7, 2023 due to the company's refusal to negotiate a new collective agreement.
The USO and Sitcpla unions have called the 1,600 workers belonging to the Ryanair, Crewlink and Workforce companies to 24-hour strikes from Monday to Thursday, which during the first two weeks will affect 1.04 million passengers, with an average of 130,600 commuters every day.
This new call is added to the stoppages at the end of June and for much of July by USO and Sitcpla, and which have caused cancellations and delays at the Spanish airports where Ryanair operates, especially in Barcelona-El Prat and Palma de Mallorca. .
The strike will last until the beginning of January, coinciding with the holiday period of August and Christmas, times when very high levels of traffic are usually recorded.
On this first day of the strike, 10 flights have been canceled and 51 were delayed until 9:00 a.m., according to USO.
Four of the ten flights suspended up to that time had their departure from Barcelona airport and another four arrived at Barcelona, while in Palma de Mallorca one departure and one arrival flight have been suspended.
There have also been suspensions of departures in Hamburg (Germany), London, Milan, Rome and Menorca, the last four bound for Barcelona.
The delays have affected Palma de Mallorca (14 delayed departure or arrival flights), Malaga (13 delayed), Barcelona (7) and Madrid (5) to a greater extent.
In Seville and Alicante, 4 flights have departed or arrived late, in each case;
in Santiago de Compostela, 3;
in Girona, 1, while in Ibiza and Valencia there has been no delay.
Minimum services
The Ministry of Transport has set minimum services that range from 68% to 85% on domestic flights to or from the islands, and from 36% to 60% on peninsular flights whose travel time on public transport is equal to or greater than five hours. and international flights.
As for peninsular national flights whose travel time on public transport is less than five hours, which at the moment during the strike days are scheduled only in Barcelona, the minimum services range between 34% and 38%.
USO has indicated in a press release that the strike "is reached with the conversations completely broken, without any intention of Ryanair to sit at the negotiating table of the agreement."
The union criticizes that "the abusive minimum services and their application, even more abusive, have only left the option of exercising the right to strike when the poor organization of the company allows it."
The workers demand that the Irish low-cost company apply Spanish labor legislation, as well as a salary increase.
They ask for "the application of basic labor rights, which cannot be subject to negotiation, such as 22 working days of annual vacation or 14 legally established holidays."
The strikes in June and July have already forced the cancellation of more than 200 flights and caused thousands of delays.
In these weeks, they denounce that Ryanair has fired 11 workers for going on strike, when they had not been legally summoned to perform minimum services.
His reinstatement also joins the claims.
For its part, Ryanair has indicated in a statement that the new strike call will have a "minimal, if any, interruption" in the company's operations.
After recalling that it has recently reached an agreement with CC OO on the demands of the TCP, he insisted that the recent strikes by USO and Sitcpla "have had little support and a minimal effect" on the flights of the 3,000 that it operates daily and that less than 1% has been affected by the strikes.
Despite this, it has confirmed the 10 cancellations this Monday.
EasyJet strike
In the middle of the month, the Easyjet pilots will join the strikes, after closing the conflict with the cabin crew, who also called strikes in July, but who finally reached an agreement with the British low-cost airline.
Now it is the pilots summoned by Sepla who will go on strike in three periods of 72 hours —on August 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 27, 28 and 29— due to "the company's refusal to recover the conditions that the pilots had before the pandemic ”, indicates a note released by the union.
This also claims to negotiate a new collective agreement.
The stoppages occur in a context marked by the airport chaos that a large part of the main European airports are suffering this summer, due to the rapid recovery in demand, labor disputes and staff shortages.
