Travel
Europe’s travel strikes in May and June: When are they and where will be affected?
Workers across Europe are walking out to protest low pay and poor working conditions.
Europe is a hive of strike action right now, with many employees unhappy that sky-high inflation has not been matched by higher wages.
Walkouts are planned all over Europe, showing that it always pays to check before you travel.
Luckily, we have gathered all of the strike information together below.
Read on to find out where and when are walkouts taking place.
If your flight or train is cancelled or delayed, you will be entitled to a new ticket or compensation. Read our guide for the full details.
Italy: Transport strikes happening in May and June
There will be a 24-hour ground handling strike at airports on 4 June.
The action is over employment contracts for handling staff. Unions say pay and conditions have not improved in the last six years.
The good news is that under Italian law flights scheduled to leave between 7-10am and 6-9pm are protected from strike action.
We will add more details on likely impacts of the strike when it is available.
Italy: Nationwide bus, train and tram strike
There is a nationwide, 24-hour general strike on 26 May which will affect bus and tram services as well as metro lines, with significant delays and cancellations likely to take place on the day. At the time of writing, it isn’t yet clear whether local and interregional rail services will also be affected by the walkout.
The strike was called by the Italian union USB (Unione Sindacati di Base) in protest against precarious work contracts and low wages.
France: Travellers warned about ongoing French pension protests
Unions across France have been in an ongoing battle against an increase in the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.
Protests broke out across the country after President Emmanuel Macron decided to push through the change without a parliamentary vote. Rubbish built up in Paris and was set on fire. Protesters have also clashed with police in the French capital.
Trade unions have now announced a new nationwide day of protests on 6 June ahead of the French parliament’s National Assembly on 8 June.
The level of travel disruption on strike days has varied. However, there have been flight and train cancellations and tourist attractions in Paris do sometimes close. So it is worth checking ahead of time if you’ll be travelling on a strike day.
French air traffic control strikes
Air traffic controllers (ATC) have been on strike since March, affecting flights all over Europe, and set to last until 1 June. Low-cost airline Ryanair said that in the first four months of 2023, there were more than 50 days of ATC strikes leading to more than 3,700 cancelled flights and affecting more than 666,000 passengers.
UK: Security staff strikes continue at Heathrow Airport
Security staff at Heathrow are on strike from 25 to 26 May as part of a row over pay. This industrial action almost exclusively affects Terminal 5 and British Airways is the only airline to operate from this terminal.
It is difficult to predict how much disruption the walkouts will cause.
Whereas the organising union Unite say it will cause “mayhem”, Heathrow says it has managed to keep the airport running smoothly during the previous industrial action, involving around 1,400 security staff.
“We anticipate that the airport will be busy during this period, and additional “Here to Help” teams are available to assist passengers,” a statement on Heathrow’s website says.
The airport has advised people to check the status of their flight before travelling. Passengers have been told to arrive no earlier than two hours before short-haul flights and three hours before long-haul flights.
Travellers will also only be able to bring two items of carry-on luggage through security on strike days. Handbags and laptop bags do count but checked baggage isn’t affected.
British Airways is offering passengers the chance to check in hand luggage for free to reduce pressure on security checkpoints.
Scotland: Potential disruption at Glasgow airport
Security staff who work at Glasgow airport have been negotiating a pay rise. They have just rejected what the Unite union called a “derisory” offer of a 5 per cent pay increase.
The union is balloting 400 workers employed by five companies; Glasgow Airport Ltd, ICTS Central Search, OCS, ABM and Falck Fire Services UK on strike action.
“If these companies don’t come back with fair and decent offers then a summer of travel chaos is on the horizon,” warned Pat McIlvogue, Unite industrial officer.
No strike dates had been announced at the time of writing.
Spain: Airline and airport strikes continue into summer
The Spanish Airline Pilots Union (SEPLA) is calling for a fresh wave of strike days for pilots at Air Europa. They will be walking out from 22 to 26 and 29 to 30 May then again on 1 to 2 June. These will take place at all of the airline’s bases of operation and workplaces in Spain.
The union has warned that strikes “will be extended in the coming months if the company refuses to negotiate a fair agreement.”
Pilots represented by SEPLA at other airlines in Spain, including Ryanair and Easyjet, are also considering strike action this summer.
It is part of an ongoing protest against the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agency’s application of the ‘minimum services law’. This requires at least 90 per cent of flights to go ahead even when they are taking part in industrial action of pay.
SEPLA argues that the way this law has been applied impedes on the pilots’ constitutional rights to a full strike and protects the interests of Air Europe bosses. Other groups including air traffic controllers and flight attendants could also join the walkouts to put pressure on airlines and the government.
If you know of a big strike happening in your country that we have missed, we’d love to hear from you via Twitter.
Travel
A 4-year cruise or a €1 house in Italy: Inside the schemes helping Americans skip Trump’s presidency
Searches by Americans for moving abroad soared in the 24 hours after the first polls closed, according to Google data.
Following the recent US election result, Google searches for ‘how to move to Europe’ increased by more than 1,000 per cent in some countries.
Searches by Americans for moving to Canada and Australia soared by 1,270 and 820 per cent respectively in the 24 hours after the first polls closed, according to Google data.
The interest in leaving the States has not gone unnoticed by marketing firms.
A residential cruise ship is now offering Americans a four-year ‘escape’ trip while a Sardinian village has relaunched its €1 house scheme.
Cruise company offers four-year escape from Trump
Cruise firm Villa Vie Residences is marketing a four-year round the world trip to Americans looking to skip Donald Trump’s second term as president.
The Tour La Vie programme offers passengers a stay of up to four years onboard while visiting 140 countries – which doesn’t include the US.
The irreverently named packages include a one-year ‘Escape from Reality’ cruise, a two-year ‘Mid-Term Selection’ option, a three-year ‘Everywhere but Home’ cruise, and the four-year ‘Skip Forward’ trip.
Guests would join the Villa Vie Odyssey, a residential cruise ship which set sail from Belfast in September, several months into its voyage.
“We came up with this marketing campaign before we even knew who would win. Regardless of who would have won, you would have half of the population upset,” CEO Mikael Petterson told US news site Newsweek.
“Quite frankly, we don’t have a political view one way or the other. We just wanted to give people who feel threatened to have a way to get out.”
Prices start at a little under $40,000 (€38,000) a year. For those opting for the full four-year escape, single-occupancy cabins start at $256,000 (€243,000) while double-occupancy costs up to $320,000 (€303,000).
The price includes all food and drinks (alcohol only at dinner), WiFi, medical visits, weekly housekeeping service and bi-weekly laundry.
Sardinian village relaunches €1 house scheme for Americans
In rural Sardinia, the village of Ollolai has revived its €1 house scheme, now targeting Americans exhausted by the election.
The homes-for-the-price-of-an-espresso offer has been relaunched for US citizens “worned [sic] out by global politics” and “looking to embrace a more balanced lifestyle”, local authorities write on the village’s website.
“Of course, we can’t specifically mention the name of one US president who just got elected, but we all know that he’s the one from whom many Americans want to get away from now and leave the country,” village mayor Francesco Columbo told US news site CNN.
“We have specifically created this website now to meet US post-elections relocation needs.”
Those needs include slowing down and recharging with Ollolai’s dreamy Mediterranean lifestyle.
“Nestled in pristine nature, surrounded by incredible cuisine, and immersed in a community with ancient traditions in the rare Earth’s Blue Zone, Ollolai is the perfect destination to reconnect, recharge and embrace a new way of life,” the website claims.
Available properties will soon be listed online with prices ranging from €1 for houses needing substantial renovations to €100,000 for those that are ready to live in.
This is not the first time the village in Sardinia has put houses for a pittance on the market. In a bid to halt a steep population decline, Ollolai began selling off abandoned homes in 2018 to people willing to carry out $25,000 (€24,000) of renovations within a three-year timespan.
Travel
Catalonia’s holiday rental ban may not be allowed under EU law as Airbnb pushes back
Catalonia has said they want to rid Barcelona of its 10,000 holiday lets in the next 5 years.
Catalonia’s recent ban on Airbnb-style holiday rentals breaches EU law, according to a complaint filed with the European Commission by an industry group.
The European Holiday Home Association claims that the ban, introduced by Catalonia in June this year, breaches the provision of services directive.
The Spanish region announced that they wanted to rid Barcelona of its 10,000 tourist flat licences over the next five years. The city has not granted new licences since 2014 but this has not helped to stem a housing crisis, with locals saying they can not find places to live at affordable prices.
Why has Barcelona’s Airbnb ban been challenged?
“We are convinced that EU law has not been respected,” Viktorija Molnar, Secretary General of the European Holiday Home Association (EHHA), said in a statement released on Wednesday.
“By submitting the EU complaint, we hope that the European Commission will take a step further and open a formal infringement procedure against Spain,” added Molnar, whose group represents short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and Expedia’s Vrbo.
The move follows legal concerns raised by the European Commission itself that restrictions brought in by the Spanish region were disproportionate to the aim of tackling housing shortages.
EHHA argues that “unjustified, disproportionate and unsuitable” restrictions breach the EU’s Services Directive, which regulates a swathe of activities from hotels to legal advice. They also said that claims about the impact of Airbnb on housing affordability are “politically inflamed”.
The lobby group may have support from the European Commission itself, whose officials wrote to Spanish authorities to protest the law in February according to a document seen by Euronews Travel.
“The Commission services consider that the restrictions laid down in [Catalonia’s] Decree-law 3/2023 are not suitable to attain the objective of fighting housing shortage and are disproportionate to that objective,” the document said.
Spanish authorities could have also considered less swingeing restrictions and hadn’t offered evidence that short-term rentals were responsible for housing market tensions, it added – noting that there were three times as many empty dwellings as tourist rental properties in Catalonia.
Barcelona is just one European holiday destinations trying to find ways to tackle overtourism.
Cities like Venice have banned cruise ships from stopping on their shores, Athens regularly restricts visitor numbers at the famous Acropolis and Amsterdam is moving its red light district out of the city centre to try and clean up its image.
How the European Commission is taking on holiday rentals
Brussels has already taken action to bring the sharing economy within the regulatory fold, offering new rights to platform workers and hiking value-added tax on short-term lets and ridesharing apps such as Uber.
But the issue could prove totemic for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – who has created the first-ever European Commissioner for Housing as part of her second mandate, set to take office within weeks.
She has told Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen to “tackle systemic issues with short-term accommodation rentals”, in a mission letter that handed him the housing brief alongside responsibility for energy policy.
A spokesperson for the Catalan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CORRECTION(20 November, 10:02): corrects spelling of Molnar’s name
Travel
Microsoft pitches AI agents that can perform tasks on their own at annual Ignite event
The move has been criticised by other tech companies who have branded Microsoft as being a “panic mode”.
In opening remarks to a company conference in the United States on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has set the stage for where the company is taking its artificial intelligence (AI) business.
AI developers are increasingly pitching the next wave of generative AI (GenAI) chatbots as AI “agents” that can do more useful things on people’s behalf.
But the cost of building and running AI tools is so high that more investors are questioning whether the technology’s promise is overblown.
Microsoft said last month that it’s preparing for a world where “every organisation will have a constellation of agents – ranging from simple prompt-and-response to fully autonomous”.
Microsoft elaborated in a blog post Tuesday that such autonomous agents “can operate around the clock to review and approve customer returns or go over shipping invoices to help businesses avoid costly supply-chain errors”.
Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference caters to its big business customers.
Microsoft criticised
The pivot toward so-called “agentic AI” comes as some users are seeing limits to the large language models behind chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s own Copilot.
Those systems work by predicting the most plausible next word in a sentence and are good at certain writing-based work tasks.
But tech companies have been working to build AI tools that are better at longer-range planning and reasoning so they can access the web or control computers and perform tasks on their own on a user’s behalf.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has criticized Microsoft’s pivot. Salesforce also has its “Agentforce” service that uses AI in sales, marketing, and other tasks.
“Microsoft rebranding Copilot as ‘agents’? That’s panic mode,” Benioff said in a social media post last month. He went on to claim that Microsoft’s flagship AI assistant, called Copilot, is “a flop” that is inaccurate and spills corporate data.
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