| Antarctic voyages stalled by strike

A national strike in Argentina
has left passengers stranded
and delayed departures for
ships in Ushuaia.
THE start of the Antarctica cruise season was
frozen for 24 hours on Tuesday when a
nationwide strike affected operations at the
major turnaround port of Ushuaia.
Cruise Weekly was aboard the Akademik
Ioffe sailing on One Ocean Expeditions’ first
Antarctic voyage for 2012-13 when details of
the action unfolded.
According to expedition leader Aaron
Lawton, there was talk of closing the port,
which would have forced the disembarkation
process to be conducted by zodiacs at a nearby
yacht club.
But the Ioffe was able to dock in the early
hours of the morning, despite a lack of workers
on the pier.
In an inventive move, the crew resorted to
dressing casually to look like passengers when
offloading luggage from the ship.
One Ocean Expeditions also provided its 50
departing guests with a take-away lunch to
help ease the pain of potentially long delays at
the airport.
A small number of Australian, Canadian and
European passengers were unable to fly home
due to cancelled flights, while others stayed in
hotels in Ushuaia for the night.
All but one of the 175 arriving passengers, for
both the Ioffe and its sister ship Akademik
Sergey Vavilov, managed to make it into the
country in time for the scheduled 20 Nov
departure, mainly due to arriving a day early,
but had to wait until after midnight for the
strike to finish for the ships to depart.
In Buenos Aires, most flights were grounded,
along with some trains and buses.
Although it was reported that LAN and
Aerolineas Argentinas pilots were prepared to
work, airport ground staff (in departments
such as catering and aircraft maintenance)
were on strike.
The action was called as a political show of
force by truckers union boss Pablo Moyano,
the longtime leader of Argentina’s General
Workers Federation.
Moyano said their demands included “the
total elimination of income taxes”, as well as
salary hikes and other benefits.