The airline Iberia canceled nearly 400 flights in Spain due to a strike by its ground attendants that heralded the Epiphany season, a major holiday for the country.

THE strike, announced by the country’s two main unions, the UGT and the CCOO, is set to begin tomorrow, Friday, and end on January 8. It concerns all Iberia ground services and in particular baggage handlers.

This social movement led to the annulment “more than 400 flights”Iberia said in a statement released after a final meeting with unions on Wednesday night that ended without an agreement.

These flight cancellations, involving Iberia as well as its low-cost subsidiary, Iberia Express, and its regional subsidiary, Air Nostrum, will affect “more than 45,000 passengers,” the airline said.

According to Iberiawhich is owned by the IAG group, which also owns British Airways, this four-day strike will also impact almost 90 companies to which it provides airport services.

This will cause “huge damage to thousands of people whose journeys are disrupted”, the company insisted in its statement, noting that “there is no justification for the strike”.

This mobilization takes place in the days around Epiphany or Epiphany, January 6. An official holiday, Epiphany, is an extremely important celebration in the country. Children receive gifts, while parades are also organized for the arrival of the Three Kings – mainly on the eve – in all the cities of the country.

Many Spanish they take the plane at this opportunity to meet their families and then return to their homes.

Iberia’s ground-handling workers are justifying their mobilization with concern over the recent loss of several contracts at the country’s major airports, which are managed by the state-owned Aena group.

Aena has hired new service providers who have pledged to take on Iberia’s groundhandling workers, but unions fear worsening working conditions.

“We are in a particularly difficult situation,” say the UGT and CCOO, who criticize Iberia for not adequately defending its employees.

A criticism rejected by the company, which ensures, it claims, that “all jobs as well as the conditions of wages and social benefits are guaranteed” by the collective agreement that governs the sector.