Barcelona airport strike: cancelled flights at El Prat and your rights

As of 16 October 2026, the CGT union's open-ended strike at Groundforce, one of El Prat's three ground handlers, is still formally called: Spain's Transport Ministry has set minimum services from 1 October to 30 November 2026. We have found no reports of cancellations in October. CGT has also called protests, not strikes, in T1 on 19 and 26 October and 2 November, from 11:00 to 14:00. No other strike is announced at El Prat; we will update this page as soon as one is called.

Since Aena's 2023 tender, ramp handling at Barcelona is provided by three companies: Aviapartner, Menzies and Groundforce, part of the Globalia group, which owns Air Europa. Some airlines handle themselves, such as Ryanair through its subsidiary Azul Handling. Security screening is run by I-SEC under contract to Aena. A strike at one of these companies only affects the airlines it serves.

• Since 4 August 2026: CGT's open-ended strike at Groundforce, which serves about twenty airlines at El Prat, including Air Europa, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM and Turkish Airlines. There is no official tally: published figures range from about 50 cancellations in the first week, according to the union, to 270 after two weeks.
• 30 March 2026: a UGT, CCOO and USO strike at Groundforce across twelve airports; on day one, 37% of El Prat departures were late at midday, by 17 minutes on average. It was suspended around 8 April.
• August 2025: weekend strikes at Menzies, with delays and some cancellations, and a strike at Azul Handling, Ryanair's handler, from 15 August.
• 25 to 27 June 2025: an easyJet cabin crew strike in Barcelona, Málaga, Alicante and Palma; 210 flights cancelled, according to the USO union.
• 5 to 8 January 2024: a strike by Iberia's ground handling, for which Iberia announced 444 cancellations across its group in Spain.

In a handling or airline strike, Spain's Transport Ministry sets the share of flights that must operate, by type of route. For the Groundforce strike at El Prat in October 2026:

• flights to the Balearics, the Canaries, Ceuta and Melilla, and public-service routes: 77%;
• international flights, and domestic ones without an alternative of under 5 hours by land: 57%;
• domestic flights with an alternative of under 5 hours, such as Madrid: 36%.

So flights to Madrid are the least protected. The airline chooses which flights it keeps.

If an independent ground handler's staff, security staff or air traffic controllers strike, a third party is striking: the fixed compensation of €250 to €600 is generally not owed. The airline must still offer a refund or another flight, and meals, drinks and, if needed, a hotel while you wait.

If your airline's own staff strike, as easyJet cabin crew did in June 2025, that is not an extraordinary circumstance (Court of Justice of the European Union, Airhelp v SAS, C-28/20, 2021): compensation is generally owed if you were told of the cancellation less than 14 days before departure, or arrived 3 hours or more late. When the strike is at a company in the airline's own group, such as Azul Handling for Ryanair, the airline will find it harder to argue it was beyond its control; each case is decided on its facts.

First complain to the airline in writing. If it has not answered within a month, or you disagree with its answer, you can complain to AESA, Spain's aviation safety agency: for flights from 2 June 2023 its decision binds the airline, which must pay within a month. AESA decides within 90 days and covers flights departing Spain, or arriving in Spain from outside the EU on a European airline.

• Vueling
• Ryanair strike
• Iberia
• Strikes

The texts this page is based on:

• Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 · EUR-Lex
• Judgment in Airhelp, C-28/20 (2021), Court of Justice of the European Union · CURIA