An Iberia worker looks at a plane as he takes part in a march towards Madrid's Barajas airport February 18, 2013. Workers at loss-making Spanish flag carrier Iberia began a five-day strike at midnight on Monday, grounding over 1,000 flights and costing the airline and struggling national economy millions of euros.

MADRID | Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:46am EST

MADRID (Reuters) - Dozens of Iberia flights were canceled on Monday as workers at the loss-making Spanish flag carrier began a five-day strike over job cuts that is expected to cost the airline and struggling national economy millions of euros in lost business.

There was little sign of chaos on Monday morning in Barajas airport in Madrid, Iberia's hub, as the airline had already rescheduled most passengers on other flights or returned them their money.

Staff, including baggage handlers and air stewards, are holding the strikes in February and March to protest management plans to axe 3,807 jobs and cut salaries at the airline.

Workers kicked off the action with demonstrations at airports and plan a street protest in central Madrid on Wednesday evening.

Unionists began an 8 km-march (5 miles) around Barajas on Monday, telling reporters the airline was under threat, as was the future of the airport.

"Nobody is safe from being sacked," said Elias Gonzalez, a maintenance supervisor at the protest who has worked for Iberia for 27 years.

"There was an initial deal with the company when the merger with the British was agreed, but now there is disagreement."

In anticipation of the strike, Iberia had already canceled 415 flights between Monday and Friday, and as many as 1,200 flights operated by various airlines will be disrupted because of the lack of handling services at Spanish airports.

Domestic flights were the worst affected, with almost half grounded between Monday and Friday, Iberia said, while 10 percent of its lucrative, long-haul flights were canceled[ID:nL5N0BEAXS].

The February 18-22 strike, the first of three scheduled week-long stoppages, coincides with school holidays in Britain, Spain's biggest source of tourists.

Tourism accounts for around 11 percent of Spanish economic output and is one of the country's very few growth sectors in a prolonged recession that has pushed the unemployment rate above 26 percent.

Iberia, which merged with profitable British Airways in 2011 to form the International Airlines Group, reported a loss of 262 million euros ($349.78 million) in the first nine months of 2012.

SURVIVAL

The airline argues restructuring is vital to return the Spanish unit to profitability while unions say the IAG management is degrading pay and benefits in Spain through its low-cost airline Iberia Express.

Some 70,000 passengers will be affected during the Monday to Friday strike this week. About 86 percent have been given a different flights, including those operated by other airlines, while 14 percent had asked for refunds.

On Monday 37 flights due between 0800 and 1400 GMT (3 a.m. ET and 9 a.m. ET) were canceled at Madrid's Barajas airport, most of them Iberia flights but also three British Airways flights to London and a Luxair flight to Luxembourg.

Since the unions notified the strike two weeks ago and the transport ministry obliged them to offer a skeleton service under Spanish strike law, virtually no passengers were stranded at Spanish airports.

Iberia is just one of several companies in Spain, including Vodafone and bailed-out lender Bankia, to lay off workers.

It is fighting an uphill battle against low-cost operators, a depressed domestic economy and competitors that are in better shape after having already gone through restructuring processes.

Sabadell Bolsa analysts said the total 15 days of strikes could cost Iberia between 50 million euros and 100 million euros of losses. ($1 = 0.7490 euros)

(Additional reporting by Robert Hetz, writing by Clare Kane and Sarah Morris, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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1 of 30. A man uses cross-country skis to make his way across the snow-covered Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower in Paris January 20, 2013. Several inches of snow fell in the French capital halting some transportation and closing some public parks.

LONDON/PARIS | Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:36pm EST

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - London's Heathrow Airport canceled a fifth of flights on Sunday and airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights to Paris's main airports as snow blanketed parts of Europe, with more forecast.

Air France predicted more cancellations on a similar scale for Monday.

Heathrow Ltd, owned by Spain's Ferrovial, said the reduced schedule - amounting to around 250 fewer flights - would help it cope with the snowfall without making further cancellations.

As snow continued to fall through Sunday, the airport operator said Monday's flight schedule would be cut by 10 percent. That number could rise, depending on conditions at other European airports, Heathrow said.

The Paris airport operator, ADP, said airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights in and out of the two main airports on the outskirts of Paris, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, primarily reducing short-haul services.

London's smaller Stansted and Gatwick airports said they were operating as normal on Sunday morning but that delays and some flight cancellations were likely.

Weather forecaster the British Met Office said snow was likely to continue into Monday. As much as eight centimeters was expected in southeast England on Sunday, it said.

On average, some 1,300 flights leave Heathrow daily. The airport, Europe's busiest, operates at close to full capacity after Britain's coalition government blocked development of a third runway in 2010.

"Many airports have plenty of spare runway capacity so aircraft can be spaced out more during low visibility without causing delays and cancellations," said Heathrow, whose owners have campaigned hard for more capacity at the London hub.

"Because Heathrow operates at almost full capacity, there is simply no room to reschedule the delayed flights," it said.

Heathrow has spent 36 million pounds ($57 million) on upgrading its winter weather equipment since 2010 - a year that saw it face heavy criticism after it almost shut down when snow hit just before Christmas. It now has 130 snow-clearing vehicles.

More than 400 flights were canceled on Friday, while on Saturday 111 flights, most of them operated by IAG's British Airways, were canceled and hundreds of passengers spent the night in Heathrow's terminals.

BA said there had been a knock-on effect because many of its planes were in the wrong place after Friday's snow.

"Like other airlines at Heathrow we have complied with a request to reduce our schedule by 20 percent on Sunday and we continue to work with Heathrow Airport to help keep the airport running as smoothly as possible," BA said in a statement.

"We are doing everything we can to help customers whose flights have been disrupted by severe weather."

Services by Air France-KLM, Ireland's Aer Lingus and Germany's Lufthansa have also been affected.

France's SNCF rail firm announced delays of up to 40 minutes on many lines as drivers cut speed in a safety measure.

Some 25,000 homes lost power supply in southwestern France.

Emergency services were drafted in to rescue around 100 people from an urban train carriage that got stuck on a track which passes in open air over the Seine river in Paris, said Frederic Grosjean, a spokesman for city's emergency services.

(Additional reporting by Rosalba O'Brien in London, and Brian Love and Gerard Bon in Paris; Editing by Louise Heavens and Myra MacDonald)

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1 of 5. Storm clouds are seen on the east coast of the United States in this NASA handout satellite image taken at 1955 GMT, December 26, 2012. The severe winter weather that hit parts of the central and southern United States on Christmas Day moved eastward on Wednesday, causing flight delays and dangerous road conditions in the Northeast and Ohio Valley.

WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:02am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A powerful winter storm forced the cancellation of about 200 U.S. flights on Thursday, snarling holiday travel as heavy snow and high winds pummeled the northeastern United States.

The National Weather Service forecast 12 to 18 inches of snow for northern New England as the storm moved northeast out of the lower Great Lakes, where it dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of Michigan.

The storm front was accompanied by freezing rain and sleet. The Ohio River Valley and the Northeast were under blizzard and winter storm warnings.

Snow will fall in northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire at up to 2 inches an hour, with winds gusting to 30 mph (48 km per hour), the weather agency said.

About 200 U.S. airline flights scheduled for Thursday were canceled a day ahead of time, according to FlightAware.com, a website that tracks flights.

American Airlines had the most canceled at about 30. A total of about 1,500 U.S. flights were canceled on Wednesday.

New York state activated its Emergency Operations Center late on Wednesday to deal with the first major storm of the season.

Governor Andrew Cuomo warned the heads of seven utilities they would be held accountable for their performances. Utilities near New York City were criticized for lingering outages after Superstorm Sandy devastated the region in October.

The storm comes as New York state has seen little snow during autumn and winter. Buffalo, New York, was 23 inches below normal for the season before the storm, said Bill Hibbert, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

"We're short and even this big snow isn't going to make it up for us," he said.

The storm dumped record snow in north Texas and Arkansas before it swept through the U.S. South on Christmas Day and then veered north. The system spawned tornadoes and left almost 200,000 people in Arkansas and Alabama without power on Wednesday.

At least five people were killed in road accidents related to the bad weather, police said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson and Neale Gulley; Editing by Paul Simao)

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