Strike at Barcelona airport today: flight situation and what to do if you are traveling this Sunday

The negotiation between Groundforce and the unions is, according to available information, open but without a close agreement and with the strike still active at the airports where it has been called. In the case of Barcelona-El Prat, the indefinite strike promoted by CGT remains in effect with no end date, while the company and employee representatives maintain contacts but without concrete results. In the nationwide conflict involving ground staff at 12 airports, the unions CCOO, UGT, and USO have been suspending strikes to encourage dialogue, although they admit that positions remain distant and condition the final withdrawal on a satisfactory agreement. There is no recent information about a closed agreement or a schedule for ending the strike in either aspect of the conflict.

Situation in Barcelona–El Prat: indefinite strike with no end date

At Barcelona-El Prat airport, the indefinite Groundforce strike began on August 4 and was still fully active on Saturday, August 8, according to the newspaper Demócrata in this report on El Prat. The call affects 1,179 Groundforce Barcelona workers and has been promoted by CGT, which denounces occupational risk prevention problems, work overload, staff turnover, and working conditions.

In the first days of the strike, at least 36 flights were canceled and various incidents with luggage occurred, including flights that took off without transporting all the planned luggage, as reported by Demócrata in this piece on cancellations at El Prat and in the specific information about the cancellation of 20 flights on the first day, covered in this economic news.

The strike is explicitly indefinite and, according to Demócrata, “there is no previously set date for its conclusion,” so it will continue until there is an agreement or withdrawal by the union (El Prat report). Sources consulted indicate that the Ministry of Transport has set high minimum services — up to 80% on some routes with non-peninsular territories and percentages dropping to 35% on other connections — which allows maintaining much of the operation while “negotiations continue to try to unblock a conflict that threatens to extend through much of the summer,” according to this information.

However, there is no public detail of a formal table, closed schedule, or concrete proposals from the company and the CGT union beyond the general demands described. No further information is available in the sources consulted about specific advances or an imminent preliminary agreement.

National conflict with CCOO, UGT, and USO: strike suspended but open

Alongside the focus on Barcelona, the nationwide conflict of Groundforce ground staff at a dozen airports (Madrid, Barcelona, Palma, Málaga, Alicante, etc.) persists. The indefinite strike called by CCOO, UGT, and USO was initially launched at the end of March due to disagreements over the application of the collective agreement, especially the salary update linked to the CPI, as explained in Demócrata articles such as this one on the strike announcement, this on the start of the stoppages, and this contextual piece.

After days with delays, cancellations, and thousands of accumulated suitcases, the unions decided to temporarily suspend the strikes to facilitate dialogue. On April 8, CCOO, UGT, and USO “suspended” several strike days and set a key meeting with the company on Friday, April 10 to “redirect the negotiation,” according to Demócrata in this information. That same day, another Demócrata news item indicated that unions and Groundforce would meet again intending to unblock the conflict, insisting that “the indefinite strike call continues and will remain active until a satisfactory agreement is reached” (meeting to unblock the conflict).

After that meeting, the unions extended the suspension of the strike despite “positions remaining distant,” and also agreed to go to the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA) in a new appointment to try to advance towards an understanding, as explained by Demócrata in this piece on the extension of the suspension. That is, the national strike remains formally called but suspended de facto while mediation formulas are explored.

There is no evidence in the sources consulted that the SIMA process has concluded with a definitive agreement or that a new strike schedule has been closed. The latest snapshot is, therefore, of a conflict “far from being resolved,” with latent union pressure and the option to reactivate the strike if negotiations and mediation do not succeed.

Other contextual elements and passenger rights

Apart from labor negotiations, various reports have focused on the effects of these strikes on passengers and their rights. Demócrata has published explanatory pieces such as a guide on affected flights and rights during Easter and another article on passenger rights, alongside coverage of the Groundforce strike at Spanish airports (delay report and collapse and luggage complaint).

At the European level, the strengthening of air passenger rights is also being debated in institutions such as the European Parliament and the Council, as reflected in notes like this Council statement and this European Parliament note, which frame the regulatory context in which conflicts like Groundforce’s occur.

Expected next steps

With the available information, the expected next steps include:

• Barcelona-El Prat (CGT): continuation of the indefinite strike until an agreement is reached; maintenance of minimum services set by Transport; and likely contacts between union and company without, for now, a decisive meeting date or preliminary agreement.
• National scope (CCOO, UGT, USO): continuation of mediation through SIMA, with the strike formally called but suspended; if mediation fails, unions have left the door open to reactivate stoppages at the 12 airports where Groundforce operates.

No further details are available about new official calls or possible direct intervention by other actors (Ministry of Labor, Aena, etc.) beyond their role in setting minimum services and ensuring basic operations.

Other links cited in the sources

The documentary bases used also include Demócrata content not directly linked to Groundforce but present in the investigation, such as judicial information on the Kitchen case, an international piece on tensions between Trump and Meloni, economic news on the sale of Sparkle by Telecom Italia, an analysis of the Murcia Government’s position on mass regularization of migrants, and agricultural information on aid to Aragonese winegrowers, which do not alter the diagnosis on Groundforce but are part of the set of news analyzed.

In Spain, setting minimum services during strikes affecting airports and air transport is a state competence supported by the constitutional right to strike and the consideration of civil aviation as an essential service. The Government establishes the general framework and, within it, the ministry responsible for transport matters (currently the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility) acts as the “government authority” that specifies which services and personnel must be maintained. In the strictly airport and air traffic control field, a royal decree expressly assigns the minister the determination of the minimum necessary personnel. This competence can be exercised directly by the minister or by lower bodies by delegation, but always within the limits set by the Constitution and the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence.

General legal basis: right to strike and essential services

The starting point is Article 28.2 of the Constitution, which recognizes the right to strike but requires the law to establish the necessary guarantees for maintaining essential community services. This referral is concretized, in the current regime, in Article 10 of the Royal Decree-Law 17/1977 on labor relations, which provides that when a strike affects public or recognized and urgent services, the government authority may agree on the necessary measures to ensure their operation.

On this basis, the Government has been approving sectoral royal decrees that declare certain services as essential and distribute competencies among different ministries. In transport matters, there are specific rules for air transport, civil aviation, road transport, and other strategic services.

Specific competencies in civil aviation and airports

In the field of civil aviation, the key text is Royal Decree 776/1985, of May 25, on guaranteeing the provision of essential services in civil aviation. Its preamble declares that aircraft movement and airport and air traffic services constitute an essential public service that cannot be paralyzed by a strike.

This royal decree establishes two central elements:

• Objective scope: it applies to strikes affecting personnel of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the airport managing entity (today Enaire/AENA), other bodies dependent on the department, and companies “directly involved” in providing airport and air traffic control and transit services.
• Competent authority: its Article 2 provides that the Minister of Transport, Tourism and Communications (the name at the time) will determine, “with strict criteria,” the necessary personnel to ensure the provision of these essential services.

From this design derive the current competencies of the Ministry of Transport in a strike affecting airports:

• Qualify, within the royal decree framework, which specific activities (air traffic control, runway operations, critical terminal services, etc.) must be maintained as essential.
• Set, by order or resolution, the minimum services and the number and profile of personnel obliged to work at each affected center or service.
• Coordinate these decisions with other department bodies (State Secretariat, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Enaire/AENA) that usually prepare technical proposals and manage their application.
• Legally support the possible imposition of sanctions for non-compliance, which the royal decree refers to public function legislation and Article 16 of Royal Decree-Law 17/1977.

This scheme integrates with sectoral air safety legislation, such as Law 21/2003 on Air Safety, which defines general State and Ministry competencies on the organization and supervision of the aeronautical system, but without altering the logic that setting minimum services during strikes is a government authority function supported by Article 10 of Royal Decree-Law 17/1977.

Who exercises the power within the Ministry

Formally, the authorization of Royal Decree 776/1985 falls on the minister. However, in administrative practice, it is common that, under the department’s organizational rules, the minister delegates this power to lower bodies.

The clearest precedent is in other transport modes: Royal Decree 635/1984, on minimum services in road transport, assigns the competence to the Minister of Transport, Tourism and Communications for interregional services; and Order FOM/1897/2006 shows that the minister can delegate the determination of minimum services in highways to other bodies (in that case, in the area of highway concessions).

Applied to air transport, this means that concrete minimum service decisions can be signed by the minister, the state secretary, or even a general directorate, provided there is valid delegation and the requirement, set by constitutional jurisprudence, that it be a government authority and not a mere management body is respected.

Relation with the Government and limits

Although the Ministry of Transport acts as the competent authority in each specific conflict, the general framework (declaring the essential nature of the service and the general intervention technique) corresponds to the Council of Ministers, which approves sectoral royal decrees such as Royal Decree 776/1985 or the 1983 royal decree on air transport (cited in databases, although its electronic text is not available in the sources consulted).

Additionally, the Ministry’s setting of minimum services is subject to two controls:

• Contentious-administrative judicial control, which can annul disproportionate resolutions or those exceeding the legal framework.
• Indirect constitutional control, since the Constitutional Court has reiterated that minimum services must be proportional, motivated, and respectful of the essential content of the right to strike.

In summary, the Ministry of Transport has a central and explicit competence to set personnel and minimum services in strikes affecting airports and air transport, executing a state legal mandate and under the supervision of the Government and courts.

No detailed and consolidated data on CGT’s results in the last union elections in the airport sector as a whole (Aena, handling, and security) is found in the sources consulted. The accessible information focuses on the collective bargaining framework of the Aena Group and, especially, on recent labor conflicts and strikes, where CGT appears but without vote counts or number of delegates. Therefore, it is not possible to precisely indicate how many representatives CGT obtained or what percentage of representation it achieved in those elections.

What is known about the union framework in Aena

In the strictly Aena field, the most complete reference is the II Collective Agreement of the AENA Group, registered by the Ministry of Labor and published in the BOE in 2025. This text identifies the signatory organizations as CCOO, UGT, and USO, which are the “most representative unions in this field,” but at no time does it detail election results or mention CGT’s presence in the unitary representation bodies. The full agreement can be consulted in the Aena Group BOE.

The agreement itself explains the functioning of the State Union Coordinator and how its members are distributed based on overall electoral results in the Aena Group, but only for internal rules purposes; it does not offer the concrete distribution of delegates by union. Therefore, from this norm, only who is at the table and with what rights can be deduced, but not the detailed electoral “score” of each organization.

CGT presence in handling and the air sector

Where CGT’s presence is clearly seen is in handling companies and, in general, in the air sector, through recent labor conflicts covered by the newspaper Demócrata:

• In Groundforce Barcelona, several current pieces (indefinite strike called by CGT, sixteen flights canceled according to CGT, 20 flights canceled, strike keys at El Prat, flights canceled at El Prat) identify CGT as the driving union and, in one of them, as majority in the works council. But it is not specified how many delegates it has or from which electoral process they come.
• In IAG handling at Barajas (South Europe Ground Services), CGT appears as one of the unions calling Christmas strikes alongside USO, as detailed in this Demócrata information. Again, no electoral results are provided.
• In other air sector conflicts, such as the Airbus Spain strike involving UGT and CGT (strike at Airbus Spain), CGT’s weight in the industry is confirmed, but without quantitative data on elections.

In parallel, there are references to conflicts and strikes at Groundforce promoted by CCOO, UGT, and USO (for example, indefinite strike call, 12 airports affected, “success” of the first day, airport collapse, strike postponement, extended suspension), which do allow understanding the union map, but also do not include the results of the last elections.

Clear limits of the available information

With all the above, two conclusions can be drawn:

• There is no official and public count detailing the number of delegates, committees, or vote percentage of CGT in the last union elections of Aena, handling companies, or airport security companies in the sources reviewed (including the BOE and Demócrata reports).
• Existing news focuses on specific labor conflicts (airport strikes, passenger rights, security, etc., as illustrated by this guide on passenger rights or pieces on Aena and CNMC management: Aena plan before CNMC, tariff increase), but do not break down the electoral representativeness of each union.

In summary, it can only be stated that CGT has significant presence in part of the airport handling (for example, being the majority union in Groundforce Barcelona) and a relevant weight in the air sector, but no numerical data is available on its results in the last union elections of the entire Spanish airport sector.

Where the exact data could be obtained

To know those results precisely, it would be necessary to consult:

• The CGT federations involved (for example, air transport and services), which usually publish tables of delegates by company and sector.
• The works councils of Aena, Groundforce, security companies, and other service companies at airports.
• The labor authority’s registers on union representativeness, which do not appear broken down in the accessible sources consulted.

Other news cited in the investigation — although relevant for the general political, economic, or union context but not for the specific question about CGT’s electoral results in airports — include, among others, information on the Kitchen case (judicial summary), international politics (Trump–Meloni tension, situation in Puerto Vallarta), strikes in other countries (general strike paralyzes flights in Belgium, new strike in Belgium), mobilizations for Gaza (Sumar’s position, general strike for Gaza), debates on electoral constituencies (explanation of constituencies) or on regional elections (Andalusia 2026 results, Andalusian provincial detail, Castilla y León elections), as well as institutional or regional parliament documents (for example, bullfighting day in the Extremadura Assembly), which also do not provide information on the question raised.

In the absence of more detailed official data or a specific publication on union elections in the airport sector, no further relevant information is available on CGT’s concrete results in those elections.