The labor conflict in airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet in Spain or SAS in the Nordic countries, with strikes called since the beginning of July, does not seem to have made a significant dent in the airline business. Not even the serious conflicts that airports in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are experiencing have stopped the recovery of one of the activities hardest hit during the pandemic. This last July, the Spanish Aena airports have reached their best level of activity since the outbreak of the covid, with more than 27 million passengers that month. Thus, they remain only eight points below the year 2019, when they registered record figures.
In the accumulated of the first seven months of 2022, the recovery reaches 83.9% of passenger traffic compared to the same period of 2019. From January to July 2022, with 132,007,150 passengers, indicate the latest data from Aena . The Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport registered the highest number of passengers, with 5,025,214, which represents a decrease of 15.5% compared to July 2019. It is followed by the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airports, with 4,431,648 ( -17.3%); Palma de Mallorca, with 4,132,434 (-1.8%); Málaga-Costa del Sol, with 2,064,856 (-7.3%); Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández, with 1,519,739 passengers (-11.7%); Ibiza, 1,343,450 (0.8%); and Gran Canaria, with 1,068,205 passengers (-0.1%). The airports that receive sun and beach tourism are thus the ones that best recover activity.
It remains to be seen, yes, the impact of the strikes called at Ryanair and EasyJet for this month of August. During the month, only one day will not be affected by any of the stoppages of cabin crew and pilots. The Barcelona airport was yesterday the worst hit by the protest of the British low cost pilots, backed by the Sepla union. In total, six flights were canceled in El Prat – three at origin and three as destination – due to the strike and another six in Palma de Mallorca. Passengers affected by the suspension of flights in Barcelona lamented that the airline had not informed them of the situation until they reached the boarding gate. The spokesman for the Sepla Union Section at EaSyjet, Martijn Tros, yesterday urged the airline to present a "realistic" offer that does not entail "a salary reduction" in relation to pre-pandemic conditions. According to this, the conditions proposed by the company represent a loss of purchasing power of around 25% for the group of pilots compared to 2019.
The strike will continue today and tomorrow, with minimum services set at between 57% and 61% of flights depending on the airport. Ryanair will start Monday, until Thursday, and on Friday EasyJet pilots will resume the 72-hour protest.
