Aeronautical strike affects 150 flights and 15 thousand passengers in Argentina

Buenos Aires. Argentine pilots and crew unions have staged a strike over wage claims affecting 150 flights and 15,000 passengers at the Aeroparque and Ezeiza terminals in Buenos Aires, state-owned airline Aerolíneas Argentinas said.

“The announced measures will affect some 150 flights and more than 15,000 passengers,” the company said in a statement on Thursday, referring to the strike that began at 5:00 a.m. local time (08:00 GMT) on Friday and lasted until 2:00 p.m. (17:00 GMT; 10:00 a.m. Central Mexico Time).

Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said on Thursday that “it is a strike that lacks any logic” and reported that “400 sanctions and salary deductions have already been applied,” after pointing out that “they have demonstrated their clear intention to do as much harm as possible to passengers.”

The nine-hour strike was led by the Association of Airline Pilots (APLA) and the Argentine Association of Flight Attendants (AAA), which accuse the state airline of an intransigent stance in salary negotiations to compensate for the loss of purchasing power due to inflation.

Protests by aviation union members have been taking place for weeks, demanding pay increases in the face of annual inflation that is around 263 percent. The cost of living rose by 4 percent in July and reached a rate of 87 percent in the first seven months of the year.

In a statement published on social media, APLA’s union secretariat demanded “a serious and appropriate business proposal” to meet its “wage readjustment demands.”

The aeronautical unions are demanding increases of up to 70 percent, while the company is offering 11 percent, within the framework of the public spending reduction policies implemented by President Javier Milei.

For weeks, aviation unions have been taking action to demand wage increases, with meetings in workplaces that caused dozens of flight reschedulings and affected thousands of passengers.

The company claimed that the measures constituted a “covert strike” and announced wage cuts.

On Wednesday, the government of President Javier Milei announced that it had reduced Aerolíneas Argentinas’ workforce by 13 percent in the last six months, which represents some 1,500 fewer workers.