This September, 160 air traffic controllers have resumed the strike in the control towers at 16 Spanish airports, managed by Saerco. The objective is to get this private operator “to sit down and negotiate a collective agreement, just as the other private operator, Skyway, does, with a conciliatory attitude,” according to spokespersons for the Air Traffic Controllers Union (USCA).
Specifically, the air traffic controllers of the towers of 16 Spanish airports have been summoned to strike action, including Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernandez, and the Murcia Regional Airport at Corvera, along with control towers at Valencia, Ibiza, Lleida, Sabadell, Vigo, La Coruña, Cuatro Vientos, Seville, Jerez, Castellón, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Palma and El Hierro.
In these towers, the service is provided by the private companies Skyway, formerly FerroNATS, and Saerco.
Within the framework of the negotiation of the new agreement, the controllers have managed to reach agreements with Skyway, while Saerco “does not accept any agreement, nor offer proposals,” according to USCA.
Saerco spokespersons contradict this information: “Saerco has made an offer in the negotiation. It has offered an increase of almost 6% in three years, an increase that is added to the 10% three-year increase that the agreement already provides for. What “Saerco is not willing to do is assume increases of 30% as USCA proposes, because there is no room to assume those increases.”
However, the union insists on its version and, to unblock the negotiation of the agreement, which must be signed by both companies, it assures that “there is no other solution than to continue with the strikes.”
Minimum services are however guaranteed, and so passenger disruption should be limited.
