Air-traffic controllers’ strike has minimal impact

The two-day air-traffic controllers’ strike had little impact in the Balearics yesterday morning.
According to the airports authority Aena, there were said to be no more incidents of delay than on a normal day, this despite the fact that a new record in terms of passenger numbers in the islands had been expected: almost 230,000 passengers at the three airports and nearly 1,500 flight operations.
The strike was between 10am and 1pm, with a further one scheduled for today from 5pm to 8pm.  Across Spain as a whole, over 6,000 flight operations were scheduled for yesterday, with almost 20% of them occurring between 10am and 1pm.
Today, roughly 1,000 operations will occur between 5pm and 8pm, which amount to 17% of the daily total.
The ministry for development, which is responsible for air transport, has established an 80% minimum service level during the strikes, which the union for air traffic controllers (USCA), representing 90% of the 2,000 controllers, has described as “abusive”. 366 controllers were due to have been working yesterday, of whom 295 will have actually been working in order to comply with the service level. 279 controllers out of a total of 345 will be working today.
The current strike action, the second official one in 26 years, has come about because of sanctions taken against a total of 61 controllers at the Barcelona Control Centre who caused the closure of airspace in 2010. Two more days of action are planned for 25 and 26 July.