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Palma.—Thousands of angry staff working for the airline Iberia and the Majorcan-based tour company Orizonia joined demonstrations yesterday to protest about threats to their jobs.

On the first day of a week-long strike over more than 3'800 pending job cuts at Iberia ground staff and cabin crew mounted a noisey protest at Palma airport where the National Police was on hand to keep the situation under control.

Shop stewards in Palma said that although minimum services were operating and very few flights were disrupted, of those not required to work yesterday, nearly 100 percent backed industrial action at airports across the Balearics.

Iberia, which merged with profitable British Airways in 2011 to form the International Airlines Group, reported a loss of 262 million euros in the first nine months of 2012.

Elsewhere, some 500 employees of Orizonia demonstrated outside the tour operator's headquarters on the ParcBit technology park.
The airline Orbest has been severely affected by the bankruptcy protection filing of its parent, tour operator group Orizonia, one of the largest tour operators in Spain. Orizonia had agreed in December to sell its business to Globalia which controls Air Europa . Spain's National Competition Commission had announced on February 13 that it would need more time to review the competitive impact of the acquisition. Globalia has said that it would still be committed to the acquisition if it receives approval from the commission.