Day 2 of baggage handlers strike causes more problems at Gran Canaria airport

The second day of a strike by Groundforce workers, a company that provides the baggage handling service at the Gran Canaria airport, caused more flight delays and delays in the delivery of passenger’s luggage yesterday, as many flew home without their suitcases which were left on the tarmac, according to the Aena press office who have reported the main effects of the strike which is currently on every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am to 10pm, two of the busiest flight days of the week.

The unions representing the workers are demanding an improvement in working conditions, due to repeated non-compliance of their employer with a collective agreement for changes in conditions that haven't been met.

Aena has said that there were no flight cancellations yesterday due to the strike when Groundforce were supposed to handle 66 flights arriving or departing, most of them international. In fact, the longest delays were just over an hour and most only left 15 or 20 minutes late on average.

However, they have confirmed that the delivery of luggage for arrivals was delayed by more than an hour with the longest waits between 1:00pm and 4:00pm when the airport was at its busiest. Also, some passengers had to travel without their suitcases, which will be sent on subsequent flights to their destinations, they added.

According to the union the strike will continue intermittently, with 12-hour stoppages on Saturdays and Wednesdays, until September 20th, when it will become indefinite, which affects about 350 workers and thousands of travellers, but according to the President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, negotiations have been opened to try to reach an agreement between the workers and the company to call off this strike, which is taking place at a "transcendental moment for tourism and our future”.

From early yesterday morning, there were phone calls between the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, FEHT and Aena to find out if there was a possibility of calling off the strike, which still went ahead, but workers hope to reach an agreement before Saturday, when, if not, the third day of the strike will take place.

The acting president of FEHT, Tom Smulders, expressed his confidence that there could be an agreement between the parties in the next 48 hours and that the strike that fully affects the tourism sector can be called off. On Monday the company requested the mediation of the Labour Authority and it is expected that today a call for a meeting will be sent to the workers on this side, according to sources close to it.

The chaos was "slightly less" than on Saturday but that was only due to the lower number of flights and tourists that arrived.