Friday Work Stoppage at 27 Argentine Airports Could Delay Flights

The state workers’ union ATE announced Monday that its members will withhold work at 27 Argentine airports on Friday, Nov. 6, a stoppage that could delay or cancel flights two days before Pope Leo XIV arrives.

ATE leader Rodolfo Aguiar said staff of the national civil aviation agency, known as ANAC, will withhold work that day and that only medical, humanitarian, organ-transport and official flights will be guaranteed. He said the protest targets the government, not passengers, and that underfunding of the system puts the lives of workers, crews and passengers at risk.

The union demands raises and more money for ANAC. It says the committee that negotiates the agency’s wages has never been convened under the Milei government, in almost three years.

ATE also says the air passenger fee raises an estimated 220,000 million pesos (about US$140 million at the wholesale rate of 1,545 pesos per dollar) a year and that less than a tenth of it returns to the agency. In a filing to the Labor Secretariat, it says the airport in San Luis is out of service because both of its fire trucks are broken.

At Ezeiza and Aeroparque, Buenos Aires’ international and domestic airports, the union will also carry out a work-to-rule slowdown, with staff fully inspecting aircraft, ramp equipment, works, runways and taxiways.

The pope is due in Buenos Aires on the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 8, from Uruguay, on a visit that also takes him to Córdoba and Luján. In early September, ATE postponed a similar two-day airport stoppage, set for Sept. 3 and 4, after the Human Capital Ministry ordered it to keep at least 75% of services running as an essential activity.

ATE has asked the Labor Secretariat for a full safety inspection of the airports and for the wage committee to be convened immediately.