T E N E R I F E ’ S O N LY Issue 694
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W E E K LY N E W S PA P E R
11 March 2011 - 17 March 2011
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You’re going nowhere fast Angry airport workers target Bank Holidays for one-day strikes SPANISH airport unions are threatening to disrupt thousands upon thousands of holiday-makers and travellers by staging a series of one-day strikes - aimed especially at UK Bank Holidays. This will be a huge body blow to Tenerife’s tourism industry, on top of all the aggravation experienced throughout the past 18 months or so. The 12,500 airport ground workers, fearing that a partial privatisation of Spanish airport authority AENA will affect their jobs and working conditions, are prepared to cause havoc with flights throughout Europe to make their point. But the Spanish Government is adamant an agreement will be reached to avoid the strikes. Development Minister José Blanco drew up the privatisation plan as part of the austerity measures to reduce the national deficit by 30 billion euros (£26bn). He told Congress on Wednesday that he would “guarantee the right of the workers and the continuation of services in the airports, through a process of determination and dialogue”. Juan Ignacio Lema, President of AENA, called the UGT, USO and CCOO union representatives to a meeting yesterday
(Thursday) to try to get the strike called off. And Blanco was set to meet with the group over fears that the proposed strikes would have a ripple effect throughout Europe. The first four of the 22 scheduled strikes are planned for the two days before Good Friday, on 20-21st April, and another two on Easter Sunday (24th) and Bank Holiday Monday, which will undoubtedly cause chaos. A further two are planned for the UK May Bank Holiday on Monday, 2nd, and on 20th May, which will obviously affect travellers to the Canary Islands
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as well as mainland Spain. Whit Monday (13th) and the August Bank Holiday (1st) are also targeted. These will be followed by walk-outs every month until the end of August - and it’s the last thing Tenerife wants following an encouraging surge in tourists here following the recent Middle East crisis. Wednesday’s broadcasts on terrestrial TV and Sky, plus national newspaper reports regarding the proposed unions’ action, will have put a damper on anyone wanting a week in the sun over here.
And that feeling could linger with holiday-makers all over Europe. Last year’s Ash Cloud debacle was enough to deter Britons from spending their holiday on an Island from which the only immediate escape route was a plane to Malaga, then a 10-hour train journey to Calais or an uncomfortable, 35-hour trip by coach to London. Ice-bound Heathrow added to the problems this winter, when flights were cancelled for days on end because the airport was ill-equipped to clear the runways.
Travellers to Spain and the Canaries also suffered at the hands of the unions in the past few months when wildcat strikes by air traffic controllers in December prompted the Spanish Government to call on the Army to handle airspace control. Budget airline Ryanair, one of the biggest operators to Spain and the Canaries, has already warned it will be forced to cancel 300 flights for 57,000 passengers over Easter. And the Irish company has urged the European Union to ban air traffic controllers from
going on strike by declaring them to be providers of an “essential service”. Last year the Irish airline was forced to cancel 1,400 flights and delay more than 12,000 others, disrupting over 2.5 million passengers, due to strikes by air traffic controllers in Belgium, France and Spain. Now, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary says air traffic controllers who strike in Europe should be fired and replaced, just as then US president Ronald Reagan did in August 1981 during the height of the summer holidays. Continued on page 5.