Iberia staff call 24 days of strikes

Pilots and crew members of Spanish airline Iberia will strike on 24 separate days including over the busy Easter holiday week, in concern over the launch of a new low-cost division, they said Friday. Pilots' union SEPLA announced 24 days of strikes spread out between March 16 and May 28. Cabin crews' union STAVLA said it would strike on the same days. Iberia employees have already staged several strikes in recent months, causing hundreds of flights to be cancelled, in protest over the effects of launching the low-cost offshoot Iberia Express. "The pilots have decided to increase the number of strike days due to the refusal of the company to negotiate," SEPLA said in a statement. STAVLA said in a statement it "considers it necessary and indispensable to call new days of strikes and this time to intensify the stoppages which will affect Easter week." SEPLA says the launch of the new line will destroy 8,000 jobs. Unions also say they fear lower salaries for new recruits on the budget airline and the shifting of jobs out of Iberia, which merged with British Airways in January 2011. Management says the conditions of existing staff will not be affected. Iberia Express plans to launch a short- and medium-haul European service on March 25, entering a sector in which the company says it has been losing money. Iberia criticised the strikes which it said "put at risk the viability of the company itself" and threatened "tourism and the image, credibility and solvency of Spain". "Iberia regrets the damage this means for its customers," it said in a statement. "The company will put in place a contingency plan to attend to them in the best way possible."