The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has determined minimum services for flights scheduled during this Tuesday’s general strike, 11 November, which range between 18% and 85% of operations, depending on the type of route and the airports of departure and arrival.
The resolution distinguishes three levels of protection for commercial flights, conditioned by the existence of alternative transport for passengers.
In the case of domestic flights with origin or destination in non-peninsular territories, as well as routes subject to public service obligations, coverage is established at between 56% and 85% of scheduled operations by airport.
In detail, the minimum services for connections with the Canary Islands are between 56% and 74%, depending on the airport involved; in the Balearic Islands, between 68% and 75%; while they reach 80% on links with Ceuta and 59% on routes with Melilla.
For international flights and for routes between Spanish mainland cities on which the alternative trip by public transport has a duration equal to or greater than five hours, minimum services are set within a range of between 39% and 64%.
With regard to flights between Spanish mainland cities with an alternative public transport option whose travel time is less than five hours, the relocation of 40% of the affected passengers is ensured. In these cases, minimum services will cover between 18% and 37% of the scheduled operations.
100% for emergencies and State flights
Apart from the percentages set for commercial aviation, Transportes guarantees 100% of flights intended for emergency missions, such as air ambulances, firefighting, the transfer of organs for transplants, surveillance, civil protection and rescue, in addition to State flights.
All overflights whose origin and destination are outside Spanish territory are likewise covered, as well as the Interior Ministry’s specific flights for the transfer of foreign citizens and the police agents responsible for their custody.
The resolution also includes the essential positioning flights required to provide essential services or to ensure operations following the strike, together with those whose departure had been scheduled before the start of the work stoppage and whose arrival takes place during the day of mobilization.
Minimum services in airports
With regard to the other activities in airports, Transportes sets a minimum staffing level of 75% of the workforce for assistance to people with reduced mobility and of 75% for the airport medical service.
Cleaning services must operate with 50% of the usual staff in the restrooms of the terminals, the technical and operational facilities, and the outdoor areas on the airside, while for the rest of the interior public areas and access points a minimum of 25% is established.
Likewise, a staffing level of 50% is set for the maintenance of electromechanical and electrical installations, networks and computer applications, wildlife control, and waste management, ensuring at least one person per shift in each of these services.
Passport control services must have sufficient staff so that the average passenger throughput time does not exceed 30 minutes. For their part, fire-extinguishing services must retain the minimum staffing necessary to maintain the category assigned to each airport.
The resolution also sets minimum services for catering in security-restricted areas, with a workforce of at least 30% of the usual level, and for airport security services under the same conditions as those provided for private security.
No mandatory minimum services in hotels
On the other hand, a clarifying note from Arinsa addressed to the hotel industry association Cehat emphasizes that, since there is no specific government ruling for the general strike affecting the sector, hotels are governed by the general situation: they may agree on security and maintenance services, but they cannot set minimum services for operating the establishment that limit the right to strike.
"Hotels, as private lodging companies, are in principle not essential services in the constitutional sense, except for very specific cases (for example, if they form part of a civil protection device or critical infrastructures), which would require an express declaration and reasoning by the competent authority", it has clarified.
Accordingly, it would only be possible to establish minimum services in hotels if a reasoned resolution of the competent authority declared them essential to ensure essential services for the community; even in that scenario, the establishment would be limited to technically carrying out what is set forth, without being able to expand it or set it on its own initiative.
What can be agreed in the hotel sector, in coordination with the strike committee, are security and maintenance services oriented exclusively toward avoiding serious damage and facilitating the resumption of activity once the strike has ended, but not toward sustaining the hotel’s normal operations during it.