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Palma.—A strike by over 60'000 ground staff in all of Spain's airports has been called off after unions reached an agreement with the national airline governing body, AENA.

Originally planned for August 18 and 26, all baggage handlers, check-in and security staff among others intended to down tools for 24 hours over precarious job security and working conditions.

But recent reports suggest that the UGT, CCOO¨and USO have reached sufficient compromises with AENA that they have decided to call off both strikes.
These agreements include reinstating four handling employees who were recently made redundant.
The strike would have affected over 6'000 flights on each of the two days with 5'000 members of the ground staff walking out at airports in the Balearics.

The U-turn by the unions has been welcomed by the Spanish and European tourist industries because the strike would have come right at the peak of a near record holiday season.

On Tuesday when industrial action looked inevitable the Balearic Association of Travel Agents, Aviba, slammed the strikes for doing further damage to the region's image.

Hundreds of thousands of British holiday makers coming to Spain and Spaniards flying into Britain faced having their travel plans disrupted.
Yesterday, Aviba reported that the riots spreading across England are not deterring Spaniards from flying in to England.
President of Aviba, Sylvia Riera, said that, to her knowledge, no cancellations have been reported and the Spanish Foreign Office has not issued any travel advice against flying to England.

London is again one of the top city break destinations this summer and it appears it is going to take more than the riots to put Spaniards off going to the UK.

That said, Riera said that the Spanish Foreign Office is continually updating its web site with the latest developments and advice for travellers.