Another 24-hour strike by pilots, aviation crew and support staff in Argentina on Friday prompted the cancellation of 319 flights and affected more than 30,000 passengers.
State airline Aerolíneas Argentinas, the flagship carrier that employs the unionised workers, said that the strike called by the APLA pilots' union would cost the company around US$2.5 million in statement.
Workers walked off the job for the second time this month demanding salary increases to cushion the blow of runaway inflation.
President Javier Milei has vowed to sign a decree declaring the aviation sector an "essential service" to guarantee a minimum level of service during such strikes.
The 24-hour strike led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights, mainly impacting domestic and regional travellers, but also hundreds of passengers heading to the United States and Europe.
Costa Rican engineer Alex Rodríguez, 53, was stranded while on his way to visit one of South America's top tourist attractions, the breathtaking Iguazú Falls on the border between Argentina and Brazil.
"We had planned the holiday a long time ago, about three months ago. We came from very far away, it was expensive and then everything fell through," he said.
APLA said in a statement posted on the X social network that the staff face "a 70 percent wage backlog in the face of 236.7 per cent year-on-year inflation in August.
It criticised “the lack of proposals from the company."
The La Nación daily reported that the unions are demanding an adjustment of at least 25 percent.
The strike is due to run from Friday midday until Saturday midday.
All Aerolíneas Argentinas flights running from Aeroparque Jorge Newbery in Buenos Aires City and the Ezeiza international airport on the outskirts of the capital have been affected.
The strike also affects Flybondi and Jetsmart airlines, due to the disruption of ramp service at Aeroparque.
The low-cost carriers switched their services to Ezeiza for the day to avoid problems.
The secretary general of the Aeronautical Staff Association (APA), Juan Pablo Brey, told Urbana Play radio station on Friday that since Milei took office in December, the purchasing power of aeronautical staff has fallen by 40 per cent.
"We have cabin crew members who are earning 729,000 pesos (US$730 at the official exchange rate) and colleagues on the ground who earn 500,000 pesos (US$500), when at low-cost companies they earn twice as much," he said.
Aerolíneas Argentinas said it considered the strike to be "untimely, abusive and out of context, promoted by union leaders in an irresponsible manner."
"Of the total number of people affected, some 28,000 had planned trips within the country, another 5,500 to regional destinations and the remaining 3,500 flights to the Caribbean, the United States and Europe," the flagship carrier said.
Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni told a press conference that Milei would sign a decree later in the day "establishing the guidelines for declaring civil and commercial aeronautics an essential service," which would guarantee at least a percentage of the service even during a strike.
"Those who strike today will be fined and sanctioned accordingly" by employers, he added.
Milei had tried to privatise Aerolíneas Argentinas as part of his sweeping economic reforms, but was forced to remove the company from the list of those to be privatised to get his measures through Congress earlier this year.
– TIMES/AFP
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