"Wildcat" Strike Snarled Air Traffic, Stranded Passengers

The Spanish Government issued a "state of alarm" over the weekend as that country's air traffic controllers staged a "wildcat" strike which snarled air traffic in Spain. The military was eventually called in to break up the strike, according to a report in The New York Times. The work action came Saturday at the beginning of one of the country's biggest holiday weekends.

Madrid and other airports in Spain had been closed by the strike, causing the cancellation of 4,300 flights, affecting more than half a million passengers, and costing airlines millions of dollars the paper reported. The controllers were protesting plans to cut their pay and increase their work hours. Air traffic controllers in Spain reportedly earn an average salary of $470,000, but some have made as much as $1.2 million. The government has proposed cutting that average salary to about $265,000.

Breaking up the strike required an emergency cabinet meeting to declare the "state of alarm" for the first time in the country's democratic history. The military was called in to take control of airport towers, and civilian controllers were told they faced prosecution if they failed to return to work immediately.

Pilots and air traffic controllers have threatened to strike in the days approaching the Christmas holidays, but the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said the lessons learned from this weekend's events would prevent a similar occurrence later this month.

FMI: www.icao.int/icao/en/m_links.html#s