The negotiation between Iberia and the CC.OO unions. and UGT for handling resumes this Tuesday after four days of strike that have left behind 444 preventively canceled flights, thousands of incidents with suitcases and numerous delays, especially at the airports of Barcelona, Bilbao and the Canary Islands.
The airline and the workers have agreed to meet today to explore a solution that avoids the subrogation of 4,000 Iberia Airport Services employees – the majority in El Prat – to the new companies awarded the ground handling service. Time is not in our favor. The airlines are expected to choose the new handling companies that have won the licenses in the Aena contest this Friday. In Barcelona they are Aviapartner, Menzies and Groundforce (the latter repeats), while Iberia and Swissport have been left out. Companies can also choose to operate their own service, as is the case with Ryanair currently.
The IAG airline has lost licenses at the airports of El Prat, Alicante, Málaga, Bilbao, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, Gran Canaria and Tenerife South, and only retains Barajas among those with the highest passenger traffic. The estimated ground handling business is 5,000 million euros for an operating period of seven years.
However, both CC.OO and UGT trust that they have room to agree. “If there is a will, we can arrive on time,” agree José Antonio Ramírez, head of the UGT air sector in Catalonia, and Jorge Gómez, from Commissions. The unions demand that Iberia offer handling services to all IAG group airlines (in addition to Iberia itself, Vueling, Level, British Airways and Air Lingus). The objective is to maintain the maximum number of employees under the Iberia umbrella, since they consider that their working conditions are better. The company, for its part, insists that surrogate workers will maintain their salaries and other benefits and has so far ruled out autohandling, considering it unprofitable. Be that as it may, the two parties claim to be willing to talk because of how much is at stake.
Workers want to maintain their membership in a company that they consider to be more of a guarantor of labor rights than competition. And the airline is trying to avoid another round of strikes that will tarnish its image and cause it to lose money. With the strikes of January 5, 6, 7 and 8 alone, Iberia has had to cancel 444 flights, with more than 45,000 affected passengers who have had to be relocated to other planes or change their tickets. The incidents with the suitcases have accumulated during these four days and in El Prat alone 4,000 pieces of luggage had been stranded yesterday morning, according to the unions. A similar number of suitcases accumulated in the Canary Islands. Iberia assured that around 90% were sent to their destination on the same day and relativizes the incidents by pointing out that on the days of the protests they have moved some 140,000 suitcases.
The company estimated the follow-up of the strike among workers without minimum services at an average of 18% until 6:30 p.m. yesterday, the last day of the strikes. According to the airline, punctuality at that time was 80% and regularity was 100%, since all scheduled flights “took off.” However, at least one flight had to be canceled due to the strike at El Prat airport, the Vueling Barcelona-Málaga flight that was due to depart on Monday morning. The low cost airline has been one of the airlines most affected by the strike – until now it has contracted the handling service with Iberia – suffering numerous delays yesterday. Company sources indicated that only 1% of the flights scheduled yesterday exceeded two hours of delay. As for passengers, several of them regretted having waited up to four hours to receive their suitcases on the conveyor belts.
