August Ground Crew Strike to Snarl Flights from Lisbon and Porto

Long‐haul holidaymakers, weekend city-breakers and Lisbon-based commuters alike felt the first jolt of Portugal’s peak-season greve this past weekend, when ground-handling employees at Menzies Aviation halted work across the country’s two busiest airports. More stoppages are locked in for every extended August weekend, meaning visitors who planned to breeze through Humberto Delgado or Francisco Sá Carneiro may instead face crowded departure halls, roaming suitcases and last-minute gate changes if talks between unions and management stall.

Summer turbulence on repeat

For anyone new to Portugal’s travel calendar, August is traditionally when Lisbon empties of locals and fills with international arrivals. This year, however, the seasonal migration collides with a rolling labour dispute. The initial walkout ran from 26 to 29 July; fresh 4-day stoppages start 8 August and then recur on 15, 22 and 29 August, spilling into the first dawn of September. Roughly 2,000 of Menzies’ 3,500 employees work in Lisbon, so the capital’s hub sees the heaviest disruption, but Porto, Faro and Funchal are not immune. Porto’s participation caught industry watchers off guard – workers there had not joined a national strike in at least a decade, signalling a rare north-south alignment inside the company. The unions timed the action to coincide with Britain’s bank-holiday getaway and continental Ferragosto traffic, hoping that flight-delay headlines during Europe’s busiest tourist month will nudge management back to the bargaining table.

Why ground crews walked out

Pay sits at the heart of the dispute. Union federations SIMA and ST say hundreds of colleagues still earn base wages below Portugal’s €820 legal minimum, despite promises made when Menzies took over the insolvent Groundforce brand in 2022. They want retroactive night-shift premiums, an end to car-park fees introduced this spring and a concrete timeline for raises pledged in a 2023 memorandum. Union leaders accuse Menzies – and minority shareholder TAP – of drafting engineers and temp workers to break the strike, allegations the airline flatly rejects. Menzies insists it “fully respects the right to industrial action” yet portrays the unions’ statements as a “distortion of operational reality”. Formal complaints are now heading to the Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho, Portugal’s labour watchdog, adding a legal undercurrent to the pay wrangle.

Ripple effect on flights

Official tallies show more than 40 cancelled services on 26 July alone at Humberto Delgado – 25 departures, 19 arrivals – with another cluster scrapped the following day. A further 14 departures and 4 arrivals fell off the board on 29 July. TAP, easyJet and Ryanair were among the most visible casualties, but any airline buying Menzies’ handling package found itself at risk of late-running turnarounds or baggage left behind. Long-haul carriers avoided outright cancellation thanks to Portugal’s arbitration court, which imposed mandatory minimum services for emergency, military and Azores/Madeira connections. Still, passengers reported transatlantic jets departing Lisbon while their checked bags remained landside, ushered to the carousel hours later by frantic skeleton crews.

Your rights when flights stall

Under EU Regulation 261/2004, travellers can claim meals, phone calls and – if necessary – hotel nights when delays cross the 2-, 3- or 4-hour thresholds, depending on distance. Cash compensation up to €600 kicks in only when the airline is directly responsible, a grey zone during third-party strikes. Courts have previously ruled that external ground-handling disputes may count as “extraordinary circumstances”, yet recent case law trends toward a stricter view if the carrier could reasonably have mitigated the impact. Always file a claim in writing, keep boarding passes and receipts, and escalate to Portugal’s national regulator ANAC if the airline stays silent for 6 weeks.

Staying one step ahead

Expat residents often juggle Schengen visa runs, surf trips to the Algarve and school pickups all in the same weekend, so prep matters. Download your airline’s app and opt-in for SMS alerts, travel with cabin-size luggage where possible, and verify codeshare flight numbers – the operating carrier dictates which help desk you must queue at. At Lisbon’s Terminal 1, Menzies handles multiple whole rows of check-in counters; if you spot long lines there, wander to an empty kiosk elsewhere and print your boarding pass before security. Arriving 3 h early may feel excessive, but Portuguese security posts can bottleneck suddenly during summer spikes, and strike-bound flights often shuffle gates at the last minute.

Will August be smoother?

The Infrastructure Ministry has so far limited itself to reminders that “dialogue remains open,” while airport operator ANA prefers to broadcast gentle advice rather than wield sanctions. Sources close to the talks say pay-rise numbers remain far apart, yet both sides acknowledge public opinion could sour if suitcases continue piling up. Should negotiations drag on, unions hint at expanding action into September's back-to-school exodus, whereas Menzies claims its contingency rosters can “protect the vast majority of flights”. For travellers and foreign residents alike, that means another month of pencilling plans in erasable ink – and keeping a wary eye on the departures board.