Iberia staff have started the first of their five-day strikes causing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
The Spanish airline has axed 415 of its 1,060 flights scheduled between Monday and Friday this week (February 18-22). No-frills subsidiary Iberia Express has also cancelled around 100 services for this week while Vueling, which uses Iberia ground staff, has cut 350 flights this week.
Cabin crew and ground staff are holding three five-day strikes in February and March in a dispute about job cuts at Iberia, which is owned by IAG. Iberia announced 3,800 redundancies last week in a bid to restructure the loss-making carrier.
Striking workers forced their way into the airline's check-in area at Madrid airport on Monday (February 18) but Iberia said the second day of the strike on Tuesday (February 19) "started without any significant incident at the airports".
Iberia said that 38 of 135 scheduled flights had departed on Monday by 08.30, including long-haul services from Madrid to Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. On Tuesday, the airline cancelled 76 flights, while another 80 flights have been axed by Air Nostrum along with 20 services by Iberia Express.
The airline said in a statement: “Iberia is making every effort to find seats on Iberia or other airlines for passengers booked on flights cancelled because of the strike, and is making full refunds when no alternatives are available or acceptable to the customer. Alternative flights were found for 70,000 customers whose flights for this week were cancelled.”
For the latest information on Iberia’s flights, click here
Updates on cancelled flights are also available from Iberia Express and Vueling