Barcelona Airport’s Groundforce Strike Is Called Off, but Union Rallies Will Continue at T1

The CGT union has called off its indefinite strike at Groundforce, the ground handler for close to 20 airlines at Barcelona-El Prat airport, after signing an agreement with the company. The union announced the deal on Saturday, October 17, 2026, ending a walkout that began on August 4.

“After all this time of struggle, we consider the agreement good, and the strike is therefore called off,” the CGT said in a statement carried by Europa Press. The deal leaves one dispute open: three dismissed workers have not been reinstated.

What the agreement changes

Union sources quoted by Metrópoli Abierta say the deal immediately ends scheduled shifts of five hours and 45 minutes. It also commits to an assessment of psychosocial risks and workloads in Terminals 1 and 2.

The same sources list a review of 2024 annual working hours, with extra pay where it is owed, and a review of overtime and of the time staff need to move between points on the airport. Staff will also get an internal procedure to apply for airline training courses.

The CGT has not published the full text, Catalunyapress noted, so the complete terms are not public. None of the reports reviewed for this story carried a statement from Groundforce.

The three workers Groundforce dismissed include two members of the summer strike committee. “Despite weeks of insistence and negotiation, the company continues to refuse to reinstate them,” the union said, as reported by VilaWeb, and it reserves the right to take legal action on their behalf.

What travelers can expect

With the strike withdrawn, the minimum-services order no longer governs Groundforce’s check-in, boarding and flight coordination staff at both terminals. Those were the services the walkout covered, EFE reported in August.

The disruption fell on Groundforce’s client airlines. In August, Euro Weekly News listed them as including Air Europa, Air France, KLM, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and the Lufthansa group, while Iberia, Vueling, British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair use other handlers.

The CGT has called rallies at Terminal 1 on Mondays October 19, October 26 and November 2, from 11:00 to 14:00 local time. The union says the protests will continue until the three workers are back in their jobs.

How the strike unfolded

The CGT filed its strike notice on July 17, and Spain’s Ministry of Transport set minimum services on July 29, according to the ministry’s order. Groundforce told the ministry the strike covered 1,179 workers at El Prat.

The ministry estimated that Groundforce’s airlines had about 11,600 flight movements and 2.4 million seats scheduled from the strike’s start through September. It put the number of passengers who could be affected at about 2.0 million.

The union said the dispute was about health and safety, not money: understaffing, heavy workloads and high staff turnover. “We’re not asking for money, this is about our safety and health,” CGT representative Juan Navarro said in August, as quoted by Euro Weekly News.

Cancellations climbed fast. By August 18, the strike committee put them at about 270 flights and said about 6,000 suitcases had not reached their destination, Catalan News reported.

The CGT later paused the strike to allow talks, then restarted it in mid-September after Groundforce dismissed two strike-committee members. EFE reported on September 18 that it had restarted the day before (Catalunyapress gives September 16), and the ministry issued a second minimum-services order to run from October 1 to November 30.

The reports reviewed for this story give no cancellation total for the whole strike, so its full cost to passengers is not yet known.

Why a handler strike hits some airlines and not others

At big European airports, ground handling is usually split between several licensed companies, and each airline contracts the one it uses. A strike at one handler therefore hits its client airlines while the rest of the airport keeps running, a pattern seen when Brussels Airport’s ground handlers walked out this month.

Spain treats air transport as an essential public service, so a handler strike never runs at full strength. The ministry protects a share of each airline’s flights on each route and day, set by how easily passengers can travel another way.

Flights handled by Groundforce	Protected in August	Protected in September
To or from Spain’s islands and other non-mainland territories, and public service routes	80%	77%
International, and mainland Spain routes with a public transport alternative of 5 hours or more	58%	57%
Mainland Spain routes with an alternative under 5 hours	35%	36%
Emergency, ambulance, firefighting and rescue flights	100%	100%

That is why Groundforce’s airlines kept flying much of their schedules through the summer while still canceling hundreds of flights.