Cabin crew working for low-cost airline easyJet based in Spain are planning to walkout for nine days next month which could throw the holiday plans of thousands of UK travellers into disarray.
They will stage three separate during the month - between July 1-3, July 15-17 and July 29-31 - in the row over pay. The airline's flight attendants in Spain are demanding a 40 per cent increase to their basic salaries. Although the dispute involves crew flying out of the holiday hotspot, they often operate flights to the UK.
Union spokesperson Miguel Galan said: "The company underestimated the outlook, was more pessimistic and conservative and is not ready for the demand." However, he insisted the union hoped an agreement could be reached to avoid the walkout.
The latest announcement follows the bombshell that easyJet revealed plans to cut more UK flights over the busy summer period. Up to 10,000 of 160,000 flights on sale for July, August and September may no longer go ahead because of the continued disruption in the travel industry.
However, chief executive Johan Lundgren said the airline had not yet decided how many cancellations there might be during those months. It has blamed staff shortages at airports, as well as air traffic control delays for delayed flights and cancellations.
Mr Lundgren said: “I can’t tell you how many flights will be impacted as we need to work this through. It would be misleading for me to give any numbers today because we simply don’t know.”
He added: “Delivering a safe and reliable operation for our customers in this challenging environment is easyJet’s highest priority and we are sorry that for some customers we have not been able to deliver the service they have come to expect from us.
“While in recent weeks the action we have taken to build in further resilience has seen us continue to operate up to 1,700 flights and carry up to a quarter of a million customers a day, the ongoing challenging operating environment has unfortunately continued to have an impact, which has resulted in cancellations.
“Coupled with airport caps, we are taking pre-emptive actions to increase resilience over the balance of summer, including a range of further flight consolidations in the affected airports, giving advance notice to customers, and we expect the vast majority to be rebooked on alternative flights within 24 hours.
“We believe this is the right action for us to take so we can deliver for all of our customers over the peak summer period in this challenging environment.”
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