translated from Spanish: More than 5,000 passengers affected in Argentina by flight cancellation

The cancellation and delay of dozens of Aerolíneas Argentinas flights due to the holding of union assemblies affected more than 5,000 passengers on Friday.
Members of the Association of Air Line Pilots (APLA) and the Argentine Association of Aircraft made assemblies and for several hours at the airport of the city of Buenos Aires and in the international terminal located on the outskirts of the capital, “with remove collaboration and task retention, preventing the normal performance of the operation,” the airline said in a statement.
The measure caused “a very significant impact on the company’s operation” harming more than 5,000 passengers, the company added.
Several Latam flights also suffered cancellations or delays.
Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich considered the assemblies to be electoralist and targeted trade union sectors related to former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015). “Kirchnerism systematically seeks to affect good things that we have achieved,” he added to the media.
The former staff is running for the vice-presidency in a formula in which she is accompanied by her former chief of staff Alberto Fernández as a candidate for the first judiciary for the October elections, in which conservative President Mauricio Macri will seek his Reelection.
Many of the affected passengers planned to travel to different provinces of the country such as Salta, Córdoba or Jujuy to take advantage of the long weekend as Monday and Tuesday will not be workdoctors.
Aerolíneas Argentinas President Luis Malvido also considered the measure to be political. “Aerolíneas Argentinas grows in number of passengers and then we have a group of guys who want to turn to the government. Today was a record day and we can’t fly,” La Red radio told radio.
For its part, APLA stated in a statement that companies and their workers face “a very different reality from the one they are trying to promote” the authorities and that this situation is “destroying Argentina’s aerocommercial industry”.
He added that Avianca Argentina has suspended its operations and does not pay the salaries to its workers for months, Andes operates with only three planes and maintains a redundancy plan and Aerolíneas Argentinas will end 2019 “with 200 fewer pilots and deprogramming 30% of s fleet as part of the shrinking of the international area.”
The opening up of the sector from the authorization to operate several low-cost airlines has caused the unease of the guilds, which also denounce the flexibilization of working conditions in different companies.

Original source in Spanish