Their salaries must also rise. The cabin crew of the British low-cost airline Easyjet in Portugal began a three-day strike on Saturday to demand higher wages, leading to the cancellation of flights from Portugal. Some flights were canceled on Saturday morning, in particular to Bastia, Birmingham (United Kingdom) and Basel (Switzerland) from Lisbon, as well as Madrid from Porto (north), according to information from Aéroports du Portugal (ANA) which advises EasyJet passengers to do their research before going to the airport. The Portuguese Ministry of Infrastructure, which oversees transport, had established a minimum service for 54 flights.
For its part, Easyjet indicates that it is doing everything possible to “minimize the impact” of this social movement, explaining that it tried to anticipate the strike, by canceling flights in advance and by giving “the possibility to its customers either to change free flight or to obtain a refund”. According to the National Union of Civil Aviation Personnel (SNPVAC), which called for this mobilization, the company had canceled 78 flights over the three days of the strike, which corresponds to approximately 30% of scheduled flights, at the time of the announcement of the strike notice on March 17.
A booming niche
The strikers are demanding wage increases, “frozen since 2019” and improvements in their working conditions, explains a spokesperson for the union. In the Easyjet network in Europe, “we are the least well paid” but also those who “work the most hours with the fewest rest periods”, he added, adding that the decision to strike was taken after the failure of five months of negotiations with the company.
Easyjet, which has acquired 18 take-off and landing slots from the public company TAP subject to a restructuring plan, has developed strongly in Portugal. The company offers nearly 90 air connections from Portuguese airports, has increased its capacity by 36%. It will sell 11.2 million seats this year. The company, which is planning a record year, should employ more than 830 employees this summer, compared to 350 in 2019, before the health crisis, said José Lopes, director of EasyJet for Portugal, at the start of the year.