Spanair races to find ways to reimburse passengers

Spanair, which ceased its operations on Friday due to huge financial problems, was in talks at the weekend with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to look for ways to refund customers who had purchased tickets in advance.

The airline said in a statement Sunday that the agreement would make it "easier for travel agencies to reimburse the full price of the ticket for passengers who had paid through a bank transfer or in cash."

Those who paid with a credit card or through the company website should contact their banks to determine how they can get reimbursed, Spanair said.

The airline said it doesn't know exactly how many air passengers were affected by the bankruptcy closure but that it was confident the IATA would pay for the tickets.

Public Works Minister Ana Pastor has warned company executives that they face fines of up to nine million euros for violating the nation's aviation rules by suddenly shutting down. Pastor was only informed of the decision two hours before Spanair made its move to ground all flights.

Meanwhile, air passengers from Africa who were stranded over the weekend following Spanair's sudden closure were expected to return to Barcelona late Sunday after they were put on other flights.

Some, like Fátima Pérez, who is from the Canary Islands, found themselves in a stressful situation. Pérez had flown with two other family members to Barcelona for a bone marrow transplant with a ticket paid by the Canary Islands' health authorities. She was expecting to return on Saturday but the airline was no longer in operation.

Pérez and her two companions had to pay 108 euros each to get home. "We found out about it through the internet on Friday night," said the 30-year-old woman.

Spanair workers to discuss options

It was reported that some 22,770 passengers were left stranded this weekend by Spanair's decision to cancel all its flights. Customers were put on alternative flights operated by Vueling, Air Europa, Lufthansa and Iberia. But the estimated 40 passengers stranded in Mali and Gambia had found it more difficult to find an alternative.

About 4,000 direct and indirect workers have been affected by Spanair's closure. The troubled airline was more than 115 million euros in debt at the end of 2010. Employees are expected to meet on Monday to discuss their situation.

Union leaders at the airline say they will also hold a meeting with the Public Works Ministry later in the week.

CCOO Secretary General Ignacio Fernández Toxo told EFE on Sunday that his union would try to seek a solution so that the airline would continue to operate. He didn't indicate what type of measures he had in mind. "It seems difficult but it would be better to keep the airline running," he said.

Jorge Carrillo, the CCOO official responsible for airline workers, said Spanair was doing all it could to try to make January's payroll for all of its employees. He said workers had not lost any wages previously because the airline had kept up to date with salaries.

But late Sunday, Spanair announced it would only pay half of the employees' salaries for the month of January, Efe reported, quoting union sources.

Two days after Spanair's closure, some passengers - mostly non-Spaniards - were still appearing at the airline's empty counters at Barajas International Airport in Madrid and El Prat in Barcelona, which was Spanair's hub.

Genero Tinnefeld, a 39-year-old consultant from Germany, didn't know Spanair had gone broke until he arrived in Barcelona on an alternative Lufthansa flight. "There was a rumor going around in Munich that there was a pilots' strike. No one told us that it had canceled all its operations."

In Catalonia, some 2,000 complaints have been filed with the regional government and the airport authority AENA.

Regional government spokesman Francesc Homs said the owners of Spanair were "entirely responsible" for all the workers who lost their jobs. The Catalan government did all it could to keep the airline operating, Homs said.

Juan Encina, the USO union's representative for airline employees, said it would be difficult to reassign workers to other airlines because of the problems facing the industry. Iberia is also losing money and has been affected by pilot strikes to protest the company's plans to introduce a low-cost carrier, while Air Europa is undergoing a partial layoff plan, Encina said.

Meanwhile, sources at another union, CGT, said Spanair employees got word of their fate through an email, and some workers were prevented from entering the airline's facilities once the announcement was made Friday afternoon.

According to CGT sources, the employees got emails saying they had been temporarily laid off. The same sources said that all of their electronic access cards had been deactivated.