Aviation workers will have to announce strikes at least five days in advance and operate at least half of flights during work stoppages, according to new government regulations. Commercial air transport will now be considered an essential service for legal purposes, meaning unions are required to meet certain minimum provisions even during industrial disputes.

The rules were announced in a pair of decrees published in Argentina’s Official Gazette on Monday. It comes after a flurry of union assemblies and strikes in airports across the country have led to the cancellation and rescheduling of hundreds of flights, disrupting thousands of passengers’ journeys.

Pilots, baggage handlers and other staff are striking in a dispute over pay, overshadowed by a vehement political debate about whether to privatize national carrier Aerolíneas Argentinas. 

Under the new rules, when aviation workers go on strike, they will have to guarantee that at least 50% of flights operate. The longer the strike lasts, the higher the proportion of flights they are expected to run. Staff will also have to guarantee an air connection for locations that are only served by one route.

Airline workers launched a 24-hour strike between Friday and Saturday of last week in a dispute over pay. Aerolíneas Argentinas said that 319 flights were canceled and 37,000 passengers affected as a result. 

In recent weeks, unions have also scheduled assemblies as a means of interrupting work without having to declare a strike. This will be ruled out under the new regulations. “The holding of assemblies of any kind can in no circumstances be invoked to interrupt, directly or indirectly, the normal and regular operation of civil commercial aviation services,” the regulations state. 

One of the decrees argues that, given Argentina’s size, civil commercial aviation is “of strategic relevance for transport, passenger transit, regional and international trade, and the development of regional economies.” Air transport disruption, it adds, can have “severe consequences for [Argentina], threaten the population’s health and security, affect the supply of essential materials, and complicate local and international connectivity and trade.”

Flight delays, cancellations and changes “cause harm to passengers, create a severe economic impact, and cause considerable economic loss for the whole aeronautical sector and the economy in general,” it continued, noting that further complications arise because crews face restrictions relating to their maximum working hours and mandated rest time.

Pablo Biró, head of the APLA pilots’ union, told Radio Mitre that the new regulations were “illegitimate, illegal” and that the union would take its complaints to the local judiciary, the International Labor Organization, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. “The right to strike is fundamental,” he said. “It can only be regulated when the greater good is at risk, such as life or health.”

Three pilots were fired for refusing to fly because of the strike last week, according to APLA.

Will Aerolíneas Argentinas be privatized?

Argentina’s national carrier, Aerolíneas Argentinas, was initially included on the list of state companies to be privatized in Milei’s Bases Law. However, it was removed from the list during the extensive negotiations before the law was passed.

That doesn’t mean the company is off the table, though. On Saturday, Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger said that the government would back a bill to privatize the company, which was filed by lawmakers from the right-wing PRO party last week.

“The things we couldn’t pass with the Bases Law is going to be a PRO initiative, and I think that with this conflict, it would be an excellent moment to promote this project,” he told Radio Mitre.

What is the ‘Open Skies’ policy?

Since taking office, the Milei government has been moving to strip regulations from the aviation sector, designed to bring about more competition between companies. New regulations passed in July aimed to encourage the creation of more air travel routes and to make it easier for more airlines to operate in Argentina, including low-cost carriers. The government is calling this the cielos abiertos (open skies) policy.

Aerolíneas Argentinas has responded to the increased competition by low-cost operators such as Flybondi and JetSmart by offering cheap early-morning flights to popular tourist destinations including Bariloche, the Iguazú falls, and Salta.