Spanish air-traffic control issues could wreck thousands of holidays to Barcelona and Mallorca

'Staff say they are overstretched due to a shortage of trained controllers, as well as coping with irregular shift patterns’

Simon Calder
Travel Correspondent
Wednesday 20 June 2018 11:18 BST
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As airline bosses gather in Brussels to lambast the European Union over air-traffic control strikes, fears are growing that staffing issues in Barcelona may cause a “collapse” in operations.

Spain’s air-traffic controllers’ union, USCA, has warned of “not very promising” prospects for normal operations in the peak months of July and August at the Barcelona area control centre.

The centre controls the skies over Spain from the French border to eastern Andalucia, and also covers a large swathe of the Mediterranean – including the Balearic islands.

Key holiday airports in the area are Alicante, Barcelona, Girona, Ibiza, Menorca, Murcia, Palma, Reus and Valencia. Some flights to Almeria and Malaga could also be affected.

In April, the union warned of un verano de colapso, “a summer of collapse”, at Barcelona’s El Prat airport due to a shortage of supervisors in the control tower.

Eighty-five per cent of the 300 air-traffic controllers based at the centre voted for a series of 24-hour strikes this summer.

On 11 June the Barcelona-based union said it would not call strikes in June over “the lack of personnel in the control centre”. But it warned that current staffing levels are incompatible with the demands of ever-increasing air-traffic movements.

Staff say they are overstretched due to a shortage of trained controllers, and are having to work extra shifts to cover – as well as coping with irregular shift patterns.

Barcelona airport is the seventh-busiest in Europe, just ahead of Gatwick.

At Gatwick, a shortage of controllers in April led to the temporary closure of the runway. The Sussex airport described it as an “isolated incident” and said no repeat is anticipated during the summer.

Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, will today call for action to avoid the “collapse of air-traffic control” in Europe this summer as a result of rampant strike action.

He will tell a meeting in Brussels that the European Union should limit the amount of damage that controllers’ strikes can cause to airline schedules.

Mr O’Leary will be joined by Willie Walsh, chief executive at IAG – parent company of British Airways and Aer Lingus, and the Spanish airlines Iberia and Vueling.

Last weekend around 20 air-traffic controllers in the Marseille area control centre stopped work for 48 hours, causing 417 cancellations that affected 70,000 passengers.

Nationwide air-traffic control strikes in France, Italy and Greece have so far led to the cancellation of thousands of flights.

Airlines not only lose revenue when flights are cancelled – they also have a duty of care under European air passengers’ rights rules to provide meals and accommodation until travellers can be flown to their destination.

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