A planned one-day strike in Portugal on June 3 could disrupt up to 500 flights, affecting airlines including TAP Air Portugal and easyJet.
A general strike in Portugal could disrupt as many as 500 flights in early June. Multiple trade unions, including cabin crew belonging to the SNPVAC union, have planned a one-day walkout on Wednesday, June 3.
Ricardo Penarróias, president of a cabin crew union representing flight attendants at TAP Air Portugal—the flag carrier of Portugal and its largest airline—reported the number of impacted flights, but received almost immediate pushback from some of the airlines. The union indicated flights operated by TAP, easyJet, and Dublin-based Ryanair would be impacted, but the Irish airline told The Independent it was not anticipating any impacts to its operation.
Luton-based easyJet was anticipating some of its flights to be impacted, with some 800 flight attendants staffing its Portuguese bases at Lisbon, Porto, and Faro.
Several of Portugal’s unions are participating in the general strike to protest proposed labor reforms that would make it easier for companies to fire employees and outsource jobs to non-union workers and workers outside Portugal. The strike was proposed by one of the country’s largest umbrella unions of trade workers, with several trade-specific unions joining the action, including those representing workers in the health, education, public transportation, and intercity rail sectors.
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A union representing airline pilots said it would not join the strike, but both Portuguese and European aviation regulators prohibit passenger flights from operating without a minimum number of flight attendants onboard for safety reasons.
To accommodate passengers displaced by the pending work action, TAP is offering flexibility for tickets issued prior to May 20 (when the union announced participation in the strike) for confirmed seats on June 3. Passengers can instead fly through June 2, or from June 4 to 11, without any additional charges. The airline advises that passengers can make their changes directly with TAP or with travel agents.
Not all TAP cabin crew are members of the striking SNPVAC union. Unlike unionized airline crews in the United States, which generally operate on a “closed shop” principle (meaning cabin crew must, in most situations, join a specific union as a condition of employment), union membership in Portugal is voluntary. TAP has a number of different contract situations for its own cabin crew, and can continue to operate some flights on June 3 with workers who are not members of SNPVAC or who are members of unions not participating in the general strike.
TAP has not given any indication whether the majority of the impacted flights would be on the airline’s short-haul European network or their long-haul flights. The airline has significant service from the Americas and Africa to its hub at Lisbon. easyJet and Ryanair operate services within Europe from their Portuguese bases.
The last time TAP flights were grounded by a labor action was in December, as part of another general strike in response to the government’s proposed changes to the country’s labor laws. That strike also lasted a day, but ultimately allowed the airline to operate only 63 of the 283 flights it had scheduled for that day. Train and bus services across Portugal also saw similar reductions in service, operating only the bare minimum with the available remaining staff.
Wages in Portugal are some of the lowest in the European Union, and workers there have also been pinched by higher housing costs and creeping inflation. Labor strikes in Portugal tend to be announced in advance, and are limited to just one day of disruption, giving airline passengers in particular time to sort out other options for travel, most often on the days surrounding the strike date.