Air Europa has cancelled 14 flights scheduled for tomorrow due to a new strike by its pilots until 2 June, offering affected passengers the possibility of changing the date or destination or obtaining a voucher for the amount of the ticket.
The Spanish Airline Pilots Union (Sepla) has called Air Europa pilots to eight new days of strike action on 22, 23, 25, 26, 29 and 30 May and 1 and 2 June, following the four that took place earlier this month, which resulted in 68 flights being cancelled.
During these eight new days of protest, 114 flights have been cancelled, affecting domestic routes connecting Madrid with Bilbao, La Coruña, Palma de Mallorca, Vigo and Malaga, and international routes to Rome (Fiumicino), Milan (Malpensa), Paris-Orly, Oporto and Lisbon, as well as the one connecting Barcelona and Palma.
14 Air Europa flights cancelled daily in the first five days of the strike
On the first five days of the strike, as well as on 1 June, the airline will stop operating 14 flights on each of them, while on 30 May, there will be 18 operations cancelled and, on the last day (2 June), a total of 12.
The airline is offering three alternatives to affected customers, the first of which is the possibility of changing dates in the same cabin to fly within 30 days of their original flight and on the same route.
The other two are to re-route to another Air Europa-operated destination within 3 days before or after the original date of their flight or to save the amount of the ticket to be used as credit towards a future purchase for any airport operated by the airline.
Sepla accuses management
According to Sepla, the call for strike action is a response to “the tension and labour conflict generated by Air Europa management, playing with workers’ rights, disguising as proposals what amounts to a real loss of labour rights acquired in the 4th collective agreement”.
For the union, “giving in to pressure from the company would have meant worse working conditions and wages in the short and medium term”.
The pilots “feel discriminated against by the company, as they are the only labour group affected by the airline’s actions in the various negotiations it has held on wage revisions”.
In fact, while the conflict with the pilots continues, the negotiation between Air Europa and the unions of its cabin crew (TCP) has come to a successful conclusion, reaching a pre-agreement on 18 May, which includes a cumulative wage increase over three years (2023-2025) of 11.93%, and which will now be submitted for ratification by the workers.
