5th Feb 10
Spanish air traffic controllers strike could cause Easter holiday chaos
by Adam Richards
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of travellers will face chaos when travelling over the Easter peak period if strike across Spain go ahead.
A pay dispute involving air traffic controllers, who can earn up to £800,000, is threatening to turn into a strike. It would commence prior to the year’s first long holiday, hitting 400,000 Britons.
The action would ground or delay up to thousands of flights in and out of Spanish airports, including popular tourist hotspots such as Mallorca, Malaga, Alicante and the Canary Islands.
A spokesman for the Air Transport Users Council, James Fremantle, said that Easter Holidays were a peak time, it’s a particularly bad time to strike. People would be stuck at airports for quite a few days.
Unions representing the controllers said that travellers could face massive delays and cancellations, unless a pay deal was reached between the country’s airports authority by March 31.
The dispute is over proposed plans to reduce the air traffic controllers’ salaries by up to 40 per cent. They currently get a basic wage of £175,000, which is 3 times the salary of their UK counterparts, but some can earn as much as £800,000 a year.
Our Stories
- BT to introduce ultra-fast broadband
- Retail veteran warns of high street death spiral
- Tesco exec who sold shares moved from role
- Tesco market share slips
- UK consumer confidence recovers
- Gary Speed talked of suicide before death
- Tesco scraps carbon-label pledge
- UK university applicant numbers fall 8.7%
- Stelios blasts easyJet bonuses
- Train staff to get Olympic bonus
- New house buyers drop by 10.5 per cent
- US economy sees fourth quarter growth increase
Popular Topics
afghanistan al qaeda Apple ASDA bank of england barack obama BBC british airways china david cameron Debenhams Egypt facebook george osborne Google India ipad iphone ivory coast japan Libya London M&S Marks & Spencer Morrisons nhs North Korea Office for National Statistics pakistan protests russia sainsburys Sainsbury’s South Korea terrorism Tesco Tunisia UK UK retailers UK retail news UK shopping us Waitrose Wikileaks x factorArchive
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- January 2009
