Barcelona airport staff vote to strike this month threatening yet more misery for Brit tourists
Security staff call for walkout from middle of this month that is threatening to shut down major air hub
BRITISH holidaymakers are could face even greater travel chaos after security staff at Barcelona airport today voted to go on strike later this month.
Tourists heading to Spain and other European countries were already facing queues of up to four hours at border controls following the introduction of new EU regulations.
Now workers for the private security company Eulen, which runs the border checks at Barcelona’s El Prat airport, voted for an indefinite strike beginning on August 14th or 15th.
The staff have already planned a series of mini hour-long strikes beginning on Friday and continuing on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays.
But they announced full-scale industrial action, supported by 93 per cent of the 360 company’s workers at the airport, following a meeting today.
While it is very possible the strike could be just a hollow threat, Spanish airport staff have a history of devastating walkouts.
In 2010 Spain declared a state of emergency after air traffic controllers staged a mass strike - shutting down Spain's airspace for two days running.
The strikes caused airlines including Ryanair, easyJet and Iberia to cancel all flights in and out of Spain.
And in summer 2006 thousands of Brits were caught up in travel chaos when a strike by baggage handlers shut down El Prat airport.
Around 1,000 Iberia staff walked out - and around 50 hardcore activists were confronted by officers from the Civil Guard after blocking runways with trucks and cars.
A source with the workers told Spanish media the latest strike would be "100 per cent, indefinite and 24 hours a day, seven days a week".
Eulen staff have been working to rule this week and deliberately taking the maximum allowed of ten minutes for each passenger to pass through security.
That action was already causing long queues, delayed take-offs and passengers missing flights and connections.
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Airlines warned yesterday that around 1,000 passengers had missed flights because of the action.
Airlines association Aceta said some companies were delaying 30 per cent of flights out of El Prat, Spain’s second busiest airport, because they were missing up to 50 passengers at the time for take-off.
The workers, who search passengers, monitor queues and operate scanners, want increased staffing levels and improved working conditions, saying they are stressed and work up to 16 hours a day.
Mediation between the workers and their bosses at Eulen, held at the Catalonia Labour Tribunal, broke down on Monday.
A spokesman for Aceta said the action was “causing delays at security controls that are causing some companies to delay flights so they can wait for passengers stuck in queues.”
El Prat serviced 44.1m passengers last year, making it the sixth busiest in Europe.
British passengers have already faced long delays at other airports in Spain and around Europe because of tough new border controls.
Last month the new EU controls - coupled with a lack of staff - caused Brits to miss flights out of Palma airport in Majorca.
Passengers have been warned to expect queues of “hundreds of meters” at airports including Madrid, Palma, Lisbon, Lyons, Paris Orly and Milan.
The new rules, requiring checks on passengers from non-Schengen countries including the UK and Ireland, were introduced following terror attacks in Paris and Brussels.
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