Iberia And UGT and CCOO unions They still haven’t reached an agreement on this issue ground handling staff (‘handling’) After the airline lost the tender Aena Eight of the country’s main airports and airlines are one day away from confirming which operator will provide this service to their planes.
UGT sources confirmed to EFE tonight that negotiations will continue on Wednesday.
Both sides have been negotiating since the 9th. Following a four-day strike over the Three Kings weekendUnions have called for protests against the situation of ground handling workers who must be seconded to companies that win the competition at each airport.
Because time is running out now Iberia Aena must inform the transport operator he has chosen for each transaction by this Wednesday at the latest. airports Where did he lose the competition or will he choose to ‘auto-commit’ for the entire group? IAGBritish Airways is the airline it belongs to, along with Vueling, Aer Lingus and Level.
Origin of the protest Iberia loses ground handling contracts at the country’s eight main airports (all major ones except Madrid), which in principle obliges the transfer of personnel providing these services to the companies that won the competition organized by the airport director Aena, the results of which were announced last September.
Iberia this Monday proposed to establish a company with 100% of the capital of IAG, which will provide ground handling services for all aircraft of the Spanish-British groupthe so-called ‘automatic transaction’ they could offer despite losing the privileges. This new company will absorb all of Iberia Airport Services’ employees (about 8,000), although Iberia has offered early retirement for 1,727 people and an incentivized leave program from age 56. The company argues that this will not mean staff reductions, as it plans to make new hires later.
UGT explained that unions are demanding that Iberia’s offer apply only to the eight airports affected by the loss of licence.but the company is “only willing to talk about entire airports.” CCOO also expressed itself in the same sense.
Iberia initially refused to do ‘auto-handling’ because it declared it wasn’t profitable This is a low margin business. and it would be more efficient to contract with the winners of competitions at each airport.
The airline’s latest offer will allow staff to remain in the Iberia environment as the majority will be dedicated to ‘self-steering’ and the new company could look to attract new customers in its passenger services segment. Unlike the ramp service (luggage management), which Aena resolved in September, it has been liberalized.