The UGT trade union launched a campaign on Thursday at Balearic airports, Palma, Ibiza and Minorca, to raise awareness of passenger assaults on airline employees so that they can ‘go to work without being beaten up’. The head of the UGT’s aviation sector in the Balearics, José Negreira, told Europa Press that they had already been planning this campaign, but the recent assault on a Ryanair crew member by a passenger over an argument about luggage has forced them to bring it forward because ‘it is starting to become very serious’.
The initiative kicked off on Thursday at Palma airport with the distribution of leaflets to passengers and airlines. The trade unionist highlighted the ‘very good’ reception the campaign has received, although he stressed that it is ‘sad’ that they have to intervene for these reasons. The leaflets explain that employees are there to ‘do their job’ and that they ‘do not decide’ whether airlines choose to charge for luggage.
‘These are company rules and they must be obeyed because if we don’t, we will be penalised and then the passengers’ anger will be taken out on the check-in staff or at the boarding gates,’ he explained.
As for whether the campaign would also address the assaults they receive from passengers who are drunk or under the influence of drugs, Negreia clarified that ‘everything has an influence’ but ‘normally these types of people are not allowed to travel’.
However, he clarified that the most frequent attacks are from passengers who are returning to their destinations of origin, have run out of money and, when told that they have to pay for their luggage, become angry and attack whoever is in front of them. The union representative explained that the campaign will run during the tourist season at the airports of Ibiza, Mallorca and Minorca, with the aim of ‘gaining a minimum of respect’ and going to work ‘without being assaulted, spat on or insulted’.
Asked whether they had had any dialogue with the companies, he clarified that they had not had any communication and had only received a response from Spanish airport authority Aena to a request they made in which they explained the resources they had allocated to the protection of workers.
Negreira stressed that, although there is room for improvement, the staff are there and he described the response time of the security personnel as ‘quite good’. However, he suggested that perhaps there should be an increase in staff at Palma airport because the construction work has created ‘many’ architectural barriers.