Spanish Airport Workers Continue to Sabotage Tourist Industry

 

Once again Spanish airport workers and their Unions seem determined to sabotage all efforts of the tourist industry to take advantage of the busiest time of year, at a time when holidaymakers are only just starting to return to Spain, and when funds are much needed.

The number of Brits holidaying in Spain has been dropping since 2006, and was down by 2.2million last year alone to around 11.5m. Earlier this year, due in part to the unrest in North Africa, every indication was that 2011 would have been a busy year. Hotel and Tourism bosses in Benidorm were reporting that occupancy stood at around 95% for the month of August.

Following the much publicised airport disruption in december of last year, when air traffic controllers forced the Spanish military to take control of the country's airspace, the strikes called for the 18th and 26th of this month have been called by the airport's baggage handlers.

The workers are protesting after a private company which runs baggage handling at Barcelona's El Prat airport made four workers redundant. Three of the workers were then re-hired when the contract changed, but the fourth remained out of work.

The country's 60'000 baggage handlers, who oversee all cargo and airbridges at all of Spain's airports voted to take strike action over what is basically a sense of injustice in the case of one employee.