Casa Santo Estevo

A good percentage of the air controllers in Spain have all gone off sick this weekend. So not flying.
The government wishes to bring in the army to get flights going and the trains are going to be running more frequently and with more carriages.

However RENFE staff are going on strike on the 8th December too.

agoreira

Si Franco levantara la cabeza... Wouldn't have happened in his day!

steviedeluxe

You wouldn't have the modern trains and/or underground lines either in his day. Trains that took 14 hours to arrive, or the VERY SLOW lines 1 and 2 on the Madrid underground. Believe me, the modern era in Spain is 100 times better in this respect. It's even overtaken England!

agoreira

You missed the smiley, chill man!

steviedeluxe

I didn't miss the smiley, but a couple of posters here have been praising the Franco years recently. Whatever may have been better then (and things like "security" are a double-edged sword anyway) transport now is eons better. In fact one of the few things I intend to do before dying is take a couple of AVE journeys in Spain. I fear that I won't live long enough to travel on a high-speed inter-city line in England (although I have been on Eurostar).

Casa Santo Estevo

The government has moved quickly. The law has been changed for the military to take over the air space. This has now happened with the help of a few civilian staff. The air controllers who did not turn up for work could face some years in prison if they are found guilty of leaving their posts.
Breaking news.

Dick Dasterdly

Sounds like shades of Franco, except he would likely have had them shot.
Wonder just how safe it is if these military guys are not entirely familiar with the systems they are using ?
Hope to God they all speak English as well.

Casa Santo Estevo

If you read the newspapers you understand that there is little public sympathy with the air controllers.
Some of this trouble seems to extend from that a lot of the civil air controllers did not have good enough English, so had to go back to school, so to speak. They protested about that.
The A.Cs. are always protesting about this or that. they earn a huge sum of money and this time they walked off the job on a public holiday without regard for the laws about striking by nearly all of them calling in sick


This posting was not meant to be a political statement it was meant to give advise that travelling in and around Spain is going to be difficult this weekend.
But if you want talk political...... what about the US president who sacked all the air controllers, was it Nixon? and what about Maggie's strike busting plans?

steviedeluxe

I think it was Ronald raygun who did it, although iirc there was no action to send absent controllers to prison. They merely lost their jobs...

I agree there won't be too much sympathy at the moment for the controllers - they have been able to earn vast amounts of money. Additionally, if Zapatero plays this right it could be his passport to winning the next election. It's still a dangerous route for a leader of the PSOE to follow, but he may have little option than to be brutal. It still seems extreme to me to threaten prison though.

Wonder if the French government are watching and taking notes?

agoreira

Very litle support from what I can read, just been looking at one newspaper and there are over 500 posts there and very few in support. Many advocating they should sack the lot.

steviedeluxe

the state of emergency has been declared, I hear. Be interesting to see if the ATCs are scared back to work. My guess is they will - why lose such a good paying job especially in these times of high unemployment. Vamos a ver...

agoreira

A lot are back at work, but are refusing to work, as they are ill!
I see some of the offloaded passengers have been put up in the same hotel as some of the "sick" controllers are staying, and the Guardia have been called in as there have been confrontations. Whilst I don't have an ounce of sympathy for the controllers, I feel for the thousands of passengers that are being inconvenienced as usual.

steviedeluxe

Well yes, glad I'm not in that boat.
This link is a Spanish reporter's twitter account in London - there are Spanish people caught up at Gatwick and Heathrow.

http://twitter.com/#!/annabosch

agoreira

Yes, I do read Anna, there's a few springing up on facbook I see as well.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Con...23385884392285

johnnyone

According to the UK papers some of these controllers earn up to 1 million euros a year and I thought Bob Crow was greedy!