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Budget airline passengers in Europe face travel headaches as more strikes called

Passengers with Europe's low-cost airlines are facing more strikes this summer as staff announced new walkouts on Tuesday.

Published: 21 June 2022 15:39 CEST
Updated: 23 June 2022 08:31 CEST
Budget airline passengers in Europe face travel headaches as more strikes called
Staff at budget airlines in Europe such as Ryanair and easyJet have called for more summer strikes. Photo: Adrian DENNIS / AFP

Trade unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain have called for strikes this coming weekend, while easyJet’s operations in Spain face a nine-day strike next month.

Damien Mourgues, a representative of the SNPNC trade union at Ryanair in France, said the airline doesn’t respect rest time laws and is calling for a raise for cabin crew still paid at the minimum wage.

Cabin crew will go on strike on Saturday and Sunday.

READ MORE: What’s the latest on the Ryanair strike in Spain?

A strike on the weekend of June 12th and 13th already prompted the cancellation of about 40 Ryanair flights in France, or about a quarter of the total.

Ryanair’s low-cost rival easyJet also faces nine days of strikes on different days in July at the Barcelona, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca airports. 

The provisional strike dates for easyJet are the weekends of July 1st-3rd, July 15th-17th, and July 29th-31st, as announced by the Spanish union USO. Approximately 450 staff members are involved.

READ MORE: EasyJet adds to Spain’s summer travel woes with 9-day strike

The union said Tuesday that Spanish easyJet cabin crew, with a base pay of 950 euros per month, have the lowest wages of the airline’s European bases.

The strikes come as air travel has rebounded since Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted.

But many airlines, which laid off staff during the pandemic, are having trouble rehiring enough workers and have been forced to cancel flights, including easyJet, which has been particularly hard hit by employee shortages.

On Monday, the European Transport Workers’ Federation called “on passengers not to blame the workers for the disasters in the airports, the cancelled flights, the long queues and longer time for check-ins, and lost luggage or delays caused by decades of corporate greed and a removal of decent jobs in the sector.”

READ ALSO: Strikes and queues: How airline passengers in Europe face summer travel chaos

The Federation said it expects “the chaos the aviation sector is currently facing will only grow over the summer as workers are pushed to the brink.”

Aviation sector ‘chaos’

In Spain, trade unions have urged Ryanair cabin crews to strike from June 24th to July 2nd to secure their “fundamental labour rights” and “decent workconditions for all staff”.

Ryanair staff in Portugal plan to go on strike from Friday to Sunday to protest work conditions, as are employees in Belgium.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has been dismissive of the strikes.

“We operate two and half thousand flights every day,” he said earlier this month in Belgium.

“Most of those flights will continue to operate even if there is a strike in Spain by some Mickey Mouse union or if the Belgian cabin crew unions want to go on strike over here,” he added in a media conference.

In Italy, a 24-hour strike is set to hit Ryanair operations on Saturday with pilots and cabin crew calling for the airline to respect the minimum wages set for the sector under a national agreement. 

Aircraft technician strike grounds flights from Norway 

More than 50 departures out of Norway’s airports have been cancelled so far due to an aircraft technician strike.

Widerøe has cancelled 38 flights so far, while Norwegian Air Shuttle cancelled five departures on Tuesday morning and announced a further 17 trips wouldn’t go ahead on Wednesday.

The Norwegian Air Traffic Technician Organisation (NFO) currently has 106 workers out on strike. The organisation could take out 39 more staff on Friday if an agreement on pay isn’t reached.

Travellers are advised to contact the airline they are meant to be flying with directly if their flight is delayed or cancelled. You can check scheduled departures out of Norwegian airports here. 

Widerøe has urged travellers not to contact them unless their flight has been cancelled, disrupted, or they are unhappy with the alternative travel arrangements that have been offered to them.

“If you have not heard anything from us, then you can be sure that your trip is still planned and carried out and behave in the usual way when you go out and travel,” a press officer for the airline told public broadcaster NRK.

Norwegian said it was working to rebook customers whose flights had been cancelled. 

“Almost everyone has been offered to rebook to an alternative route, and then there is one flight where we are still working to solve it,” Esben Tuman, communications director for the airline, told newswire NTB.

READ MORE: Flights in Norway cancelled due to technician strike

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EES PASSPORT CHECKS

EES border checks could undergo ‘soft launch’, UK says as app concerns mount

The UK government is preparing for a "soft launch" of the new EU border system – the Entry/Exit (EES) system - in October but authorities are still waiting for European Commission to confirm the start date, amid concerns over the delay of a new app.

Published: 4 May 2024 09:30 CEST
EES border checks could undergo 'soft launch', UK says as app concerns mount

The UK government is preparing for a soft launch of the new EU border system – the entry/exit (EES) system – on the assumption that it will go live on October 6th, ministers told a hearing at the House of Commons European scrutiny committee this week.

But the European Commission is expected to confirm the exact launch date of the new biometric checks for non-EU travellers entering the Schengen area at some point this summer, they added.

“We are very much working on a basis whereby this policy will go live on the 6th of October. It is important that we plan for that eventuality. We are expecting to hear definitively from the European Union that ‘go live’ arrangement in the summer,” Tom Pursglove, UK Minister for Legal Migration and the Border told the committee.

The parliamentary committee is conducting an inquiry on the disruptions the system will cause in the UK.

Pursglove also said that “precautionary measures” have been agreed by the EU, that will be put in place in certain circumstances after the start of EES, for example if delays at the borders exceeded a certain length of time.

Guy Opperman, Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, said that in practice this meant a “soft launch” of EES for 6 months before “a full go live”. During that soft launch EU member states and the UK could deploy flexibility measures should problems occur.

“The likelihood is, after multiple delays, that the 6th of October will proceed” and the implementation looks “very different” compared to previous scenarios considering the flexibility allowed in the first 6 months, he argued.

No details were given on what these “flexible” measures would involve however. 

READ ALSO: Your questions answered about Europe’s EES passport checks

He conceded that “a lot of work” still needs to be done but the UK “should be as ready as everybody” and “better be at front of the queue”.

App not ready

During the meeting, it also emerged that a much-anticipated app that would allow remote pre-registration of non-EU citizens subject to the checks will not be available for testing until August “at best”, prompting concerns about the EES launch date.

“You don’t need to be a sceptic about future projects to think that the provision of the app in August for going live in October is optimistic,” Opperman said.

Ministers confirmed that the app will not be ready in time for October and the committee previously stated it might be delayed until summer 2025.

The app will facilitate pre-registration, but photo and fingerprints will still have to be taken at the border in front of a guard, the committee heard.

READ ALSO: How do the EU’s new EES passport checks affect the 90-day rule?

Several MPs asked whether the entry into operation of the EES should be delayed again if technology is not ready. But Under-Secretary Opperman said the app “is not going to be a panacea to fix all problems”.

The main aim of EES is to increase security and to ensure that non-EU nationals visiting the Schengen area for a short-term do not stay more than 90 days in any 180-day period.

The entry into operation of the system has already been delayed several times and there have been calls from certain travel companies and national authorities to delay it again.

Under the new scheme, non-EU/EFTA travellers who do not need a visa will have to register their biometric data (finger prints and facial images) in a database that will also record each time they enter and exit the Schengen area.

Instead of having passports manually stamped, travellers will have to scan them at self-service kiosks before crossing the border. However, fingerprints and a photo will have to be registered in front of a guard at the first crossing and there are concerns the extra time needed will generate long queues, especially in Dover, Folkestone and St. Pancras station in London, where there are juxtaposed French and UK border checks.

Progress in preparations

Minister Pursglove also updated MPs on ongoing preparations. He said some testing of the system will take place within days, 5 kiosks have been installed at St. Pancras station and are available for testing. “You are beginning to see the physical infrastructure appear,” he said.

Kiosks and extra lanes are also being created at the port Dover and it was agreed with the EU passengers travelling by coach will be checked away from the Eastern dock, where controls usually take place, allowing to gain space. The vehicles will then sealed and drive on the ferries.

MPs also discussed the infrastructure cost linked to the introduction of the EES. Opperman said all EU countries will have to make “huge investments” in their ports. In the UK, he argued, this will help “address problems that have existed for some time”. Because of this “massive investment”, in a few years time “Dover will be totally transformed,” he said.

This article is published in cooperation with Europe Street News.

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