Brits planning a sunny Easter holiday to Spain are being urged to prepare for disruption with strike action at major airports due to start within hours. Industrial action involving ground-handling staff is expected to affect operations at some of the country’s busiest travel hubs, including Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, Barcelona-El Prat Airport, and Palma de Mallorca Airport, alongside other key tourist gateways such as Málaga, Alicante and airports across the Canary Islands.

The strikes, linked to ongoing pay disputes, are set to begin on Monday, March 30, after initially being delayed. They are due to continue indefinitely, raising concerns about prolonged disruption during one of the busiest travel times of the year.

Unions have called an open-ended strike involving more than 3,000 ground handling staff employed by Groundforce, the company providing ground services for Air Europa, lDiario.es reports.

Groundforce provides services at Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona-El Prat, Palma de Mallorca, Alicante, Málaga, Gran Canaria, Valencia, Ibiza, Bilbao, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

Rather than a full shutdown, the Groundforce action will take place in several daily stoppages at key times – early morning from 5am to 7am, from 11am to 5pm and late evening from 10pm to midnight which coincide with peak airport activity.

As a result, travellers could face longer queues, slower boarding and delays collecting luggage, even if flights largely continue to operate.

The dispute involves unions including CCOO, UGT and USO, who say the action has been triggered by disagreements over salary agreements.

They claim pay rises agreed in collective deals have not been fully honoured and argue that workers have effectively seen their earnings fall behind inflation.

There are also concerns about uneven pay adjustments across different roles, which unions say have created unfair differences within the workforce.

Ahead of the Easter holidays, Brits have been urged to be aware of extra border checks with the European Union‘s new Entry/Exit System (EES) and allow extra time at the border when travelling to the EU. From Friday, April 10, the EES will be fully operational at all EU airports and ports.

Gradually introduced since October last year, the EES replaces passport stamps with a digital record of when non-EU residents enter and leave the Schengen zone for short stays of up to 90 days in a rolling 180-day period.

The EES is operational in 29 European countries, including all EU member states except Ireland and Cyprus, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.