August strikes that will affect Portuguese and Spanish airports

Check which dates and destinations you should look out for so you can plan in advance

Just like in July, there are strikes that will affect travel facilities in popular Mediterranean destinations this month. People travelling to and from Portuguese airports, as well as from Barcelona, should be vigilant about the dates and conditions of these labour actions and plan accordingly in order to minimize inconveniences to their summer holidays.

Portugal: all airports

Ground operations staff working at airports in Portugal plan to go on a second strike on 5-6 August. The first such action organized by the unions took place on 30-31 July.

The purpose of the action, which will affect all of the airports in the Iberian country, is to push for increased payment for work on holidays. The move coincides with an ongoing and indefinite work-to-rule strike.

The strike will not directly affect the operations of flights, but it may have some indirect effects and is likely to cause delays in departures. The processes of baggage check-in, security clearance and retrieving baggage will be slowed down and delayed.

Nevertheless, the strike probably will not be as crippling at Lisbon and Porto airports since the government has mandated that minimum levels of service be maintained at those facilities for the duration of the walkouts.

Barcelona airport: security staff go on strike

In Spain, Barcelona’s El Prat Airport will also experience disruptions to a planned labour strike from the security workers. The strike will start next week on 10 August and will continue until 14 August.

The staff, however, will take shifts to perform their labour protest. They will not work from 4 am to 7 am, 9 am to 11 am, and 4 pm to 8 pm. Nevertheless, services have to be performed at 90% capacity following a ruling by the national government that security work is essential in light of the terrorist alert in place, according to The Catalan News.

Workers claim that their employer is not considering the 10 minutes break per hour that staff has nor the family conciliation. In addition, they demand to have free parking spots.

Our advice to deal with the strikes in case you have to use said airports is to arrive at the airport early to mitigate the impact of longer passenger processing times. Allow additional time between scheduled landing and arrival at the final destination due to probable delays in retrieving checked luggage.