Hmmmm are you trying to stress me out David? I am moving there on monday Not good news

We are flying out (hopefully) on the 23rd, I had joked with my wife about having a naturist holiday............looks like it might happen after all

Sorry Michelle

I am hoping that like most of these proposed strikes in Spain, this action will also be called off at the last minute. But it is perhaps better that passengers are at least forewarned, just so that they can be prepared and perhaps only travel with hand luggage in those very instances where that may be possible.

Fingers crossed that Ryanair or a reliable media source may have some good news soon !

David

Cripes!! Going with Flyglobespan on 25th

We were delayed on Thursday 12th coming back from Lanzarote. The talk was that the conveyor belts had stopped working, but we were suspicious as no one seemed to be trying to sort them out and ground staff starting checking us all in manually, i.e bringing boarding passes and labels up the queues, then suddenly after about an hour and a half, one belt started working again. I got the distinct impression that one of the handlers had "gone off on one" and had to be smoothed down or his ego suitably massaged to get things going again...

You can't help but realise that if those blokes down tools even for an hour chaos ensues....got us over the proverbial haven't they???

susannah, what would have given you that impression? If the belts were not working and the staff were doing manual check-in then that would mean a greater problem such as a power outage or massive computer system failure. Believe me no airport staff would opt for a manual check-in unless absolutely neccesary - its a nightmare!

People are always quick to bash airport ground staff but they have a pretty rough job, in all weathers, with nightmare shifts, all for an appalling wage. Can we blame them?

Hi,

does anyone have an update on this. We're flying to Girona on weds 18 Oct. Dunno what my mum will do if she can't take her allowed 20kgs! lol

thanks
Jules

Hi Jules .... I have just been doing another check now. There is very little information about the strike action but from what I can now gather, it is only affecting Ryanair services to Girona, Reus, Jerez, Seville, Santiago, Almeria, Granada, Murcia, Valencia, Zaragosa, Santander and Vitoria. It would appear to be a dispute between Ryanair and its ground handling staff at those airports. No other airlines appear to be affected. If travelling with Ryanair, it would be best to check out their website for latest information. Several of their flights were cancelled today.

David

Thanks David,

you're right, there is very little info available about the strike. I'll check with Ryanair tomorrow and see what I can find out.

thanks again
Jules

Having spent an age trying many search terms on google news, (because I am flying to Barcelona this week)I eventually ascertained that this strike is purely a Ryanair problem and does not affect any other other carriers. Nor does it affect any airport where Ryanair do not fly to such as Barcelona and Madrid. The staff striking are Ryanair employees only.

They are having problems with their staff in Italy too. Seems they just don't like talking or recognising legitimate trade unions and therefore are now paying the price of not treating their employees with a little respect.

Hi,

just had an email reply from my airport transfer from Girona. He said as far as he knows Girona wasn't one of the airports affected yesterday and there is nothing planned for wednesday at this moment.....so fingers crossed!

thanks
Jules

Hi Jules .... I believe that Girona is one of the airports included in the current dispute between ground handling staff and Ryanair, but that yesterday's cancellations only involved Jerez, Granada and Seville airports. It is still not clear whether industrial action did actually take place at those airports yesterday, or if Ryanair made the advance decision to cancel those flights in anticipation of possible industrial action. It is also unclear whether those flights which did operate to other airports involved in the dispute carried any hold luggage.

The Ryanair website still han't been updated with regard to any cancellations in respect of tomorrow's proposed action. Fingers crossed that you will have a trouble free journey tomorrow, but it would be helpful if an announcement could be made which would take any stress and worry about that trip away now.

David

bagand96

Sorry did I give you the impression I was bashing the ground staff?? I certainly wasn't.....the girl and bloke who were checking in our baggage were brilliant. But not all the belts seemed to be broken, just the ones from 25 upwards. In fact we were asked to take our bags to 22 eventually. The impression I got (and not just me) was that there was a sort of "holding operation" in place..i.e. they stopped any more baggage going through until the problem had been sorted. It just didn't seem like a technical problem, more a HR one...but of course I may be wrong.

No offence to anyone. And the fact is we do RELY totally on the baggage handlers; who could blame them if they did take advantage now and then??

Jules ... presumably you have been contacted by Ryanair, as the latest update on the strike action confirms that Seville, Girona, Granada and Jerez Airports are all affected today, and that checked baggage is not being accepted on flights to/from those airports.

Today's Ryanair announcement can be read HERE.

David

Hi David,

just read it online 5 mins ago and am now on hold with Ryanair re a wheelchair we need to take with us!!
Not received an email yet either....i'm extremely angry at the moment as I now have to go out and buy some cabin luggage!!

Jules

It is disgraceful Jules, and I can appreciate your anger. I am thinking too about all those holidaymakers who are due to fly home today after 2 weeks holiday in Spain, totally oblivious to this situation until they reach the airport with 20kgs of baggage.

David

Update: Still had no email from Ryanair! Apparently wheelchair is no problem.
Spoke to someone at local airport (handlers) and was told hand luggage only, which means you can't take any items of make up, toothpaste, hair gel, perfume etc. After a bit of pressure on my part, she finally admitted that we can check in hold luggage in good faith. It will make it to Gerona, but depends if anyone will unload it. As our flight is arriving late (11:30pm) we are hoping that worse case scenario is that we will have to wait until midnight for the strike to end. We are though carrying on a bag of night clothes and change of underwear in case we don't get our cases until tomorrow.

Hope this info helps out other who may be caught up in the next strike scheduled for 23 Oct

Jules

Hi there- I'm one of the poor so-and-so's who turned up at Granada airport on Wednesday night to fly to Liverpool, only to be told that my 2 big suitcases would not be coming with me. When we asked what we needed to do to get them home we were told Ryanair would do nothing. We should leave them. There was not time or facilities to arrange the 100 euros per item with a courier, but luckily the Ryanair staff came to the rescue. What the 400 passengers travelling to Liverpool & Stanstead would have done without the 6 black binbags the Ryanair office staff had god only knows. Luckily I was at the head of the queue and got one.

It was a good night for Granada's taxi drivers. Tha departure hall was littered with discarded, nearly empty suitcases, many appeared really expensive (luckily ours had been quite cheap). All were left open so there was no security risk, and had in them old beach towels, read books, toiletries, underwear, basically anything deemed expendable. I now know what it must have felt like at Dunkirk. We filled our precious binbag and put on as many layers as we could handle in the heat. At this point people were still arriving, oblivious to what lay ahead of them. By now the airport cleaner was doing a roaring trade in executive pvc compressible suitcases (ie binbags) and fights were starting between the taxi drivers for the best suitcases. At the check-in desk we were told we couldn't take our toddler's pushchair on board, so we gave that away to some nice ex-pats who had delivered their daughter & family to the airport.

The disruption caused a delay to take off- it's worth noting that Liverpool has runway maintainence ongoing at the moment and will not accept flights after midnight- we were diverted to Manchester, although Ryanair laid on buses to Liverpool thereafter.

If anyone can offer advice I'd appreciate it- our holiday insurance only covers loss or theft only. I've an idea from another link that Ryanair don't offer compensation for strike action. Strangely enough, the baggage handlers dispute was known about on our day of departure (10th Oct) as can be seen by this link.

http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/ryanairstrike.cfm

They sent us a warning email on the 17th, but this was only read on our return as you will appreciate.

Anyway, be warned! If you're scheduled on one of the disrupted flights, I suggest you take hand luggage only. I wish we had!