Martina Jaureguy Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said the government will take “drastic measures” against public air cargo company Intercargo, after its employees carried out a surprise six-hour long strike on Wednesday.
Employees from Intercargo — which provides ramp operation services for most airlines in Argentina — carried out a stoppage between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. The protest temporarily prevented passengers from stepping on and off planes at the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport in Buenos Aires City and Ministro Pistarini airport in Ezeiza. They were protesting against the “arbitrary” layoff of one of their coworkers, they said in a communiqué.
During the strike, workers refused to load or unload luggage from planes, and also to handle boarding stairs and ramps. According to Bullrich, this meant that over 2,000 passengers were left stuck aboard.
“We will take much more drastic measures against Intercargo,” Bullrich said during an interview with LN+ news channel on Thursday. She added that members of President Javier Milei’s cabinet had had “informal” discussions on the topic and accused Intercargo of having “mafias” within its operation.
On Thursday, Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced the government decided to fire 15 Intercargo employees that “took passengers hostage” during the protest. “In the Argentina we are building, we won’t allow extortion mechanisms,” he said in an X post.
Bullrich also accused the company of holding Argentines “captive” and said that in the coming days, the government will announce “very important measures that will lead to ending this extortion and airport strikes.”
The security minister filed a criminal complaint against Intercargo and the Aeronautical Staff Association (APA, by its Spanish initials) union for “kidnapping” the passengers who were not able to leave the airplanes after their flights had already landed.
“They held them there for over two hours, affecting their health due to being locked in and without proper ventilation,” Bullrich wrote in an X post, saying this form of extortion “will not go unpunished.”
Airport Police assisted passengers so they could get off the planes.
The strike affected airlines Flybondi, JetSmart, Gol, Sky and Latam. Flybondi canceled eight flights, delayed another four and transferred part of their scheduled flights for the day from Aeroparque to Ezeiza, where they have their own handling service. JetSmart canceled 18 flights and rescheduled another 16.
Intercargo is the only cargo company currently operating in Argentine airports. Some airlines such as Aerolíneas Argentinas, JetSmart, Flybondi and American Airlines have staff of their own doing handling operations, but not in every airport.
This situation happened after months of tension between aviation unions that represent workers from public companies and the government. Milei made it clear since he became president that he intends to privatize Aerolíneas Argentinas, and the same could happen to Intercargo. Despite several attempts this year, they remain public, although Congress could debate a bill to privatize the airline before the year ends.
Was there a government ultimatum?
On Wednesday night, several Argentine outlets published articles stating that the government had given aviation unions an ultimatum to present authorities with a plan on how to prevent strikes by Friday.
In case they failed to do so, the government would initiate measures that could eventually lead to the closure of Aerolíneas Argentinas.
Closure proceedings, known as a preventive crisis process, are actions a company — in this case, the government — can take to suspend or fire staff with a lower severance pay than legally stipulated when said firm is in critical condition. It can either lead to saving the company from bankruptcy, or end in its closure.
“It is a possibility in case there are no positive developments,” an industry source told the Herald. On Friday, unions will meet with the government to present a proposal to solve the conflict, the source added.
A government source, however, said that unions actually went to the Transport Secretariat to talk and look for solutions. They added that the unions said that they would stop all their protest measures as a peace offering.
Unions denied the media version that the government gave them an ultimatum.
“We don’t know anything about this, but we were asked to have a meeting after the Intercargo strike,” APA press prosecretary Cecilia Moccia told the Herald.
“All the aviation unions met with a government official, who asked us to meet on Friday,” she added.
Salary negotiations between unions, the government and Aerolíneas Argentinas were recently reinstated after months of being frozen, but on Monday the company decided to freeze them again alleging an APLA protest went against their agreement.
