The ongoing Spainish airport strikes show no sign of relenting after British tourists arriving and departing a busy airport in a popular holiday hotspot were met with delays and massive queues. Eye-witnesses speaking to the Majorca Bulletin said that there were long queues at the departure areas at Palma Airport – right at the start of the busy Easter period.

According to airport sources, twelve of the flights were delayed by midday this morning, eight of which were departures and four were arrivals. The CCOO, UGT and USO unions have called an indefinite strike by Groundforce ground staff, which began on Monday. It also involves Menzies employees in the disputes over pay who plan 24-hour strikes from April 2 to 6. The action will take place across three different time slots and is set to affect the 12 airports where the company operates, including Palma. The timeslots are between 5am and 7am, 11am and 5pm and 10pm to midnight Central European Time, each day indefinitely. The strikes will impact ground-handling services at further airports such as Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante, Ibiza, Málaga, the Canaries and others.

The Traveller website reported that “the stoppages are partial rather than full shutdowns, typically concentrated in several time bands during mornings, midday and late evenings.

“This pattern mirrors earlier labour disputes at Madrid, where limited ground handling strikes created bottlenecks at baggage reclaim and during boarding, while flights continued to operate under minimum service rules.”

It added: “For most holidaymakers, the most visible impact of the strikes is likely to be queues and slower processing rather than mass cancellations.”

According to the Unions, the strike call is in response to “the company management’s failure to comply with the wage commitments set out in the collective agreement”,

They claim the company is unilaterally interpreting the articles of the agreement, which “in practice, is resulting in a direct loss of purchasing power”.

The Comisiones Obreras, is one of Spain’s largest trade unions, also claims it is is using a restrictive interpretation of Article 96 of the agreement ‘to render null and void the provisions of Article 94, which guarantees wage adjustments in line with cumulative inflation since 2022’.

CCOO further accuses management of having applied cuts to the agreed pay rises for certain professional groups.

It added ‘which constitutes a direct breach of the current collective agreement and creates unjustified inequalities within the workforce itself’.

This will also be the first big test for the new European Union Entry and Exit system at Palma following its introduction at the end of last year.

Around 800,000 people are expected to pass through the airport over the Easter period – a figure which is higher than last year.