The strike drums are getting louder in Air Europa. The Spanish Union of Airline Pilots (Sepla) has announced that it will request mediation on Monday, April 3, by the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA) “in response to the unfeasibility of the downward proposals and the immobile attitude shown by the business management of Air Europa in the face of the legitimate demands of the pilots group of the company”, as announced in a statement.
Sepla regrets in the note that the directors of Air Europa “have ignored all the demands presented by the pilots in favor of fair working conditions and a recovery of the loss of purchasing power that the workers are suffering”.
The union assures that the business proposal supposes “a material and objective loss in their conditions, which is negatively impacting the workers, generating an increase in labor tension within the collective”who does not understand how Air Europa turns its back on him after, in his opinion, “the conciliatory and constructive attitude that the pilots have shown with the company over the last ten years and, especially, in the pandemic.”
For Sepla, mediation is the last resort to which “the contempt for the demands shown by Air Europa, before calling a strike” has led him. An attitude that, for the pilots, “is all too familiar”.
The Air Europa pilots, meeting in assembly on February 10, offered their full support to this organization, with 94.38% of the votes in the vote, to adopt “the necessary measures to defend their working conditions.” The vote, according to Sepla, had the participation of more than 91% of the technical crew members affiliated with the union.
The threat from the pilots comes at a time when Air Europa has begun to recover its pulse after the complicated situation it experienced during the pandemic. The interruption of air traffic for several months and its maintenance at a minimum later forced it to request aid from the State for more than 600 million euros between a rescue and loans guaranteed by the ICO. The airline is also awaiting the opinion of the competition authorities of the European Commission on the sale agreement reached by its owner, Globalia, with Iberia’s parent company, IAG, for 500 million euros.