MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine flight delays spark passenger violence

Passangers angry broke check-in screen

Frustrated passengers smashed ticket counters and threw objects at airline staff at Argentina's main airport on Saturday after the country's flagship airline canceled international flights for a second day.

Television images showed damaged ticket counters and broken glass in the main hall of the Aerolineas Argentinas terminal, where 5.000 passengers angry at delays caused by a baggage handlers strike and a walkout by ticket counter workers shouted down an Aerolineas Argentinas employee and threw objects at him. Ezei­za air­port was com­ple­tely pa­raly­zed yes­ter­day af­ter­no­on when pas­sen­gers of a post­po­ned Ae­ro­lí­ne­as Ar­gen­ti­nas flight bloc­ked the ac­cess to the bo­ar­ding area and burst into the of­fi­ces of the air­li­ne com­plai­ning about the de­lay, can­ce­lla­tion and res­che­du­ling of flights, a si­tua­tion that went on all day long. A group of pe­o­ple who had be­en wai­ting for over a day, angry at the lack of in­for­ma­tion pro­vi­ded by the airline sin­ce per­son­nel wor­king at the coun­ter stop­ped re­cei­ving cus­to­mers af­ter one em­plo­yee was "vio­lently ap­pro­a­ched" by a pas­sen­ger, clai­med "we want to tra­vel or no­body el­se tra­vels." Mo­ments la­ter they lif­ted the measure, allo­wing the rest of the tou­rists to fly. Earlier, several operations at the international airport were delayed as ground crews de­ci­ded to work to ru­le, de­man­ding the pay­ment of 1,200-pe­so bo­nuses, which had been agreed in 2007, and the hiring of per­son­nel as they claim there is not enough staff du­ring the high se­a­son. But the APA as­so­cia­tion of aviation wor­kers clai­med that the de­lays we­re due to a "lack of per­son­nel and equip­ment." Res­pon­ding to ru­mours that the delays we­re pro­vo­ked by a "co­ve­rt pro­test" led by the APLA pi­lots as­so­cia­tion, its he­ad Jor­ge Pé­rez Ta­ma­yo denied the ac­cu­sa­tions and said that they we­re res­pec­ting the "man­da­tory con­ci­lia­tion ordered by the La­bour Mi­nistry, to comply with the flight sche­du­le of Ae­ro­lí­ne­as Ar­gen­ti­nas." Several post­po­ne­ments and cancellations have taken place since Thurs­day at Ezei­za Air­port, de­la­ying hun­dreds of tou­rists. "There's no one from the company, no one is showing their face or telling us when we're going to fly. We're stranded with children and the elderly," a woman whose flight to Venezuela was canceled on Friday told local TV. Aerolineas Argentinas is 95 percent controlled by Spain's Marsans, with the remainder held by the Argentine state.