2023-07-15 12:36:58
The summer holidays of tens of thousands of British are at risk of being blown up by the eight-day strike by the ground staff of the main handling companies at Gatwick, London’s second airport and one of the busiest in Europe. About 1,000 employees — including those who sort bags and check in travelers — will cross arms four days from July 28 to August 1 and another four days from August 4 to 8. Gatwick , for the United Kingdom, the airport par excellence used to go on holiday in the south of the continent.
The companies involved
Given the scale of the protest, delays and cancellations of flights will be inevitable at Gatwick, says Unite, the union that organizes the strike, in a statement. The 950 ground employees work for four private companies Asc, Menzies Aviation, Ggs and DHL Services and provide services for companies such as easyJet, British Airways, Tui, Wizz Air, Ryanair. The management company of the London airport makes it known that it is working on a plan to minimize the inconvenience.
14 euros per hour
At the center of the dispute is the wage adjustment: the majority of employees – denounces the British union – are paid less than 12 pounds (14 euros, ed) per hour despite carrying out highly demanding and critical functions for safety. During the pandemic, many companies at Gatwick Airport have carried out large-scale redundancies and cut the wages and conditions of their remaining staff, Unite reports.
The impact
It remains to be understood what the impact will be: every day at Gatwick there are about 850 take-offs and landings according to the latest data provided by Eurocontrol. If an agreement in extremis is not found and if the plans to reduce the inconvenience do not work, there are potentially around 7,000 flights at risk and over one million passengers involved. To these should be added the 1,700 flights canceled by easyJet in recent days precisely due to operational problems at Gatwick.
The reaction
Unfortunately, Unite has rejected our previous 11 per cent pay rise for groundhandlers at Gatwick Airport, Menzies Aviation senior vice president UK, Phil Lloyd, said in a statement. This increase relates to our 2023 salary review and is in addition to the 10% increase granted in 2022. We are continuing discussions with our airlines and remain committed to finding a solution. We have invited Unite to return to the table to continue the discussions and hopefully we can reach an agreement that is workable for both the company and our employees. We will continue to work to find an acceptable solution to protect service for our airline and airport partners and their customers.
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