MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Aerolíneas Argentinas strike leaves 37,000 passengers stranded

Aerolíneas Argentinas pilots and their families travel on business class for free, causing substantial losses to the company. These privileges need to end, Adorni argued

Flag carrier Aerolíneas Argentinas had to cancel 319 flights Friday, altering the travel plans of some 37,000 passengers, as a result of a joint strike carried out by the airline industry labor groupings representing either pilots or crewmembers.

The state-run airline said in a press release that the economic losses due to the measure would amount to at least US$ 2.5 million from unsold tickets plus hotel and meal compensations to the affected passengers. Some 28,000 of them had made arrangements for domestic services, 5,500 others were to fly within South America and the remaining 3,500 were to go to the Caribbean, the United States, or Europe. The strike will end at noon on Saturday. “This struggle has just begun,” AAA union leader Juan Pablo Brey stressed while noting that salaries lagged 75% behind inflation and, therefore, an increase of at least 25% was needed.

Other unions representing air travel sectors were to decide on similar measures in the coming days or hours, it was reported in Buenos Aires. Hence, any plan, including air travel within or through Argentina, might require sudden rearrangements, a tour operator in Buenos Aires told MercoPress. National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) workers will carry out a strike on Sept. 19 between 6 am and 12 noon and between 5 pm and 10 pm, paralyzing operational and administrative airport services, it was also announced.

Other reports in Buenos Aires mentioned plans to remove Airline Pilots Association (APLA) leader Pablo Biró from Aerolíneas Argentinas' board of directors, on the grounds that he cannot represent both parties at the same time.

In this scenario, Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni said that workers actively engaging in these strikes would be “fined and sanctioned” by the company. “Those who do not want to give up their privileges will end up bankrupting the company they say they defend so much,” he added.

“While Argentines who spend months saving to buy a plane ticket” see their flights affected, it is possible to find “some union member on vacation in Spain with his whole family, enjoying the pleasures of their position,” Adorni underlined while recalling that pilots can “travel for free, in business class, with their families,” thus causing yearly losses of around US$ 20 million.

“There is no reason to continue sustaining in an impoverished country like ours this kind of privileges for a few,” Adorni went on. President Javier Milei was to sign an Urgency Decree later Friday declaring civil and commercial air travel an essential service.