On ANA's official website there are 19 cancelled flights until 11.49 p.m. on Sunday, between departures and arrivals.

According to the leader of SINTAC - National Union of Civil Aviation Workers, one of the six unions of Portway workers, the airlines themselves, fearing that the same thing happened during the strike of 27, 28 and 29 December 2019, from 4 p.m. on Monday decided to completely cancel their flights.

The strike of the workers of the handling company, scheduled for this Sunday, ended at midnight.

But according to the SINTAC leader, the strike will last until 31 March, and it will be done in a completely sporadic and random way because the company will somehow have to realise that it must comply.

ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal had already confirmed on Sunday afternoon the constraints at Porto airport, due to the strike of Portway handling company workers, and suggested passengers contact the companies for more information.

The same source stressed at the time that the operation at the other airports was running smoothly.

According to Simões, about 3,800 passengers should be affected.

Portway's workers are on strike mainly because of the lack of career progression and because the company failed to reach an agreement at the meeting it had with the unions last week at the ministry of labour.

In a statement released on Sunday, Portway revealed that the SINTAC prevented a solution of dialogue proposed by the company on 8 January.

"This proposal, to resume the constructive dialogue interrupted in November by SINTAC, constituted a commitment by the company to reach a global consensus with the union structures in the shortest period. This commitment was rejected by SINTAC. This union decided to follow up the strike and to make a solution of dialogue impossible," according to the document.

In the statement, Portway reaffirms its constructive and socially responsible stance, recalling that in March 2016, to avoid collective dismissal, after a decision to set up a self-handling operation by an important client, the company negotiated a Company Agreement (AE), the introduction of flexibility rules in the organisation of work and the freezing of salary and career progression.

The company stated that last November it updated tables, careers, annuities and other compensation conditions, as provided for in the AE, representing an overall average pay increase of about 8%.

On December 20, SINTAC announced a strike notice at Portway for 27, 28 and 29 December at the airports of Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Funchal and for work at weekends, between 1 January and 31 March.

At the time of the strike notice, SINTAC, in a statement, said that it had decided to go on strike because the company, through its directors belonging to the Vinci group, did not comply with the due defrosting of careers last November as it had signed in 2016.

Portway is the ground handling company of ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal, the owner of the national airports that was privatised and remained in the hands of the Vinci group.