Air Europa pilots strike action

AS announced in a statement from Sepla, the Spanish Airline Pilots Union on Monday April 3 requested the mediation of the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA) “in response to the unfeasibility of the downward proposals and the immobile attitude shown by Air Europa’s management in the face of the legitimate demands of the company’s pilots.”

Sepla regretted in its statement that Air Europa managers: “have ignored all the demands presented by the pilots in favour of fair working conditions and a recovery of the loss of purchasing power that workers have been suffering.”

This brings the possibility of strike action at Air Europa in Spain ever closer.

Air Europa pilots, meeting in an assembly on February 10, gave their full support to this organisation, with 94.38 per cent of the votes in the ballot.

The pilots’ threat comes at a time when Air Europa has begun to regain its footing after the difficult situation it experienced during the pandemic. During that period, air traffic was interrupted for several months. That left the company’s maintenance at a minimum afterwards which forced it to ask for more than €600 million in aid from the state.

MANY countries across the globe are facing overpopulation concerns, but Spain is not among them. The latest report released by Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics office, on Friday, March 31 revealed that Spain has the highest ratio of unoccupied land on the continent.

Spain ranked in first place with 426,000 kilometres squared of unoccupied land, followed by Sweden with 362,000 kilometres squared of uninhabited land. The report also offered some fascinating insights into the picture of population and housing in the European Union. With over 4.4 million cells, measuring one kilometre squared each, covering the EU’s vast territory, only 1.8 million cells are inhabited, while a whopping 2.6 million cells are uninhabited!

However, in an interesting twist, Spain also made the other extreme of the list with Madrid being recorded as the most densely populated area in the EU. With a staggering 6.7 million residents, Spain’s capital is the most densely populated region, followed by Barcelona and Rome. On the other hand, the smallest and least populated region is the Canary island of El Hierro, with just over 11,000 residents.

THE latest report on surrogacy in Spain has found that 2,500 babies have been born via surrogate, despite the practice being illegal in the country.

The news comes after Spanish sit ­ com actress

Ana Obregón faced backlash for announcing the birth of her baby via surrogacy in the USA on Wednesday, March 30.

Obregón’s decision attracted criticism due to the “clear poverty bias” be ­