It is estimated that the wildcat strike by air traffic controllers, a brilliant way to help an ailing and crippled economy with over four million unemployed, will cost the Spanish tourist industry around €250 million.
Added to this are the costs of having to deploy the military, the extra costs to other airlines having to reroute their flights to avoid Spanish airspace, not to mention any ‘image’ related damage.
Faced with the choice of returning to work or facing immediate imprisonment for sedition under the ‘state of alert’ – one step short of ‘state of emergency – the controllers have returned to their posts.
However, there are tens of thousands of tourists stranded and it is thought that it could be at least a week before everything is back to normal and all the stranded passengers reach their destination.
A very good start to the very long holiday weekend. It is believed that around 600,000 people in total have been affected by the strike action.
Just waiting now for the controllers to suggest that something needs to be done to attract tourists to the country.