Lisbon, July 24, 2025 (Lusa) - The Arbitration Court of the Economic and Social Council has decreed minimum services for strikes by workers at SPdH/Menzies, a ground handling service provider at Portuguese airports, which are due to begin on Friday.
The workers of the former Groundforce will be on strike on the last weekend of July and the last four weekends of August, called by the Metal and Allied Industries Union (SIMA) and the Transport Union (ST).
The first strike period is between midnight on Friday and midnight on Monday.
The same pattern will be repeated over the four weekends in August, with the second strike period taking place between midnight on 8 August and midnight on 11 August.
Strikes are also planned for the same period on all days between 15 and 18 August, 22 and 25 August and 29 August and 1 September.
The strike is motivated by demands such as an end to base salaries below the national minimum wage, better wages, payment for night hours and maintenance of access to the car park under the same terms and conditions "that have always applied", according to the unions.
The Arbitration Court decided to define the minimum ground handling services to “all flights imposed by critical situations relating to the safety of persons and property, including air ambulances, emergency movements understood as declared flight situations, namely for technical or meteorological reasons and others which, by their nature, make flight assistance absolutely unavoidable”.
The minimum services also include all military flights, all State flights, whether national or foreign, all flights that were already in progress at the start of the strike and whose destination is a domestic airport assisted by the SPdH, and all TAP flights returning to Lisbon that are on a night stopover in Europe.
Connections between Lisbon and Ponta Delgada (Azores), Lisbon and Terceira (Azores) and Lisbon and Funchal (Madeira), as well as between Porto and Madeira and Porto and Ponta Delgada, must also be guaranteed.
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