The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is working hard to encourage air traffic controllers on the continent to keep flight routes to property in Spain open in the weeks to come.

Advice from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office continues to advise Britons that travel to property in Spain could be disrupted in mid-August due to strike action.

However, IATA is urging air traffic controllers not to allow this to happen – pointing out the cost to the industry incurred during the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull earlier in the year.

The cost to airlines alone reached almost $2 billion (£1.3 billion) and the associated loss of revenue to tourist industries was around $5 billion, the organisation says.

Instead, IATA suggests that air traffic controllers should enter into an arbitration process with airport operator Aeropuertos Espanoles y Navegacion Aerea (AENA).

“Arbitration is a fair, open and balanced means to settle the differences between AENA and the air traffic controllers,” says IATA director general and chief executive officer Giovanni Bisignani.

“And it would avoid debilitating disruption to Spain’s economy.”

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