Flight Misery In Spain As Air Europa Extends Its Strike Action

With Spain’s high season almost upon us, flyers were hit with more headaches this week when Air Europa announced it was extending its current strike action.

In a statement released by the Sepla pilots union on Thursday, June 15, it said that a new batch of dates has been called between June 19 and July 2. This will apply to all Air Europa bases and workplaces across the country.

Sepla denounced the airline for allegedly breaching a verbal pre-agreement that had been made on June 8 regarding salary updates. It claimed that one day later, the company distanced itself from this deal and subsequently presented a ‘radically different’ document.

According to the union, the pre-agreement with Air Europa separated the salary update from the transfer of labour rights included in the IV Collective Agreement.

Meanwhile, the company’s new proposal aimed to: “cheapen the workforce by impoverishing the rights and working conditions of new pilots joining the airline’.

The pilots claimed that they had given in on their demands in order to agree on an ‘insufficient’ wage update, but which allowed the strike to be unblocked.

These latest strikes follow those already carried out recently

After these events, Sepla maintained the call for new strike days between June 19 and July 2. These are added to the eight days already carried out between May 22 and June 2.

A total of 114 flights were cancelled on those dates, along with a first batch of four at the beginning of May, which resulted in 68 operations being cut.

Sepla blamed a ‘confrontational’ position that the airline had adopted in the negotiation of the new collective agreement as the reasoning behind this latest action.

Air Europa’s management is said to be only contemplating a new agreement aimed at ‘lowering’ working conditions, with a salary proposal below the CPI. This has subsequently resulted in no progress being made in the negotiation of the V Collective Agreement.