Pilots of airline Iberia hold strike in Spain

Pilots from Spanish national airline Iberia on Wednesday went on strike for a second time this week to protest the launch of a new low-cost airline. The pilots, who also held strike on Monday and in December, are angry at Iberia's plans to create a low-cost airline Iberia Express. But Iberia insisted that the launch of the new airline would not harm their rights and would create around 500 jobs initially, a number that could rise to 1,000 in the future. Wednesday's strike followed failure of talks held on Tuesday. The strike has caused the cancellation of 104 of 292 flights programmed for the day, affecting around 10,000 passengers. Iberia said eight long-haul flights out of 48 scheduled had been cancelled along with 46 medium-haul flights and 50 internal flights. Iberia's subsidiaries Vueling and Air Nostrum are unaffected by the pilots' action.