the story behind our disrupted departure from Argentina

[from Brandon Sun via The Canadian Press Online Edition via Associated Press, 11/8/10, 11:40 AM]

Air travel chaotic in Argentina as overloaded main airport suffers strikes, reprograms flights

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - A fistfight between pilots in an airplane cockpit led to a weekend of chaos for thousands of travellers in Argentina, where authorities were still dealing with the backlog on Monday [Nov. 8th, our day of departure].

The country's main international airport was already struggling to absorb 20,000 more daily travellers due to the closure Thursday of Argentina's main domestic airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, when the fight between pilots for rival unions led to a complete shutdown of the country's main carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas.

The fight apparently started when one discovered that the other was carrying a camera to document any problems on their flight, and it became so violent that airport police hauled them off the plane in front of their passengers. Their unions both declared a strike, demanding that neither pilot be punished by the state-owned company.

More than 50 flights were cancelled Thursday, causing a backlog that forced the cancellation of 40 per cent of flights at the Ezeiza airport through the weekend. Thousands of passengers were stranded, including hundreds whose planes were left sitting on the runway. Ezeiza's passenger terminals were jammed with a sea of frustrated travellers, and traffic crawled on the already crowded airport highway.

By Monday, Aerolineas Argentinas and its Austral subsidiary were almost back to normal, with only 15 per cent of scheduled flights grounded.

But then flight attendants for the nation's next-largest carrier, LAN Argentina, went on a surprise strike, alleging that the company was violating Argentine work rules. The company denied it, and the government ordered mediation. In the end, three LAN Argentina flights were cancelled Monday and two dozen others were rescheduled [one of which was ours].

"The idea is to continue normalizing operations in the next hours. The reality is that there will be flights that don't leave, and we should resolve each one of those cases in the best way to avoid affecting passengers," Transportation Secretary Juan Pablo Schiavi told the local Noticias Argentinas news agency.