Murphy's Law: Catastrophes

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

It's tempting fate to look back at 2010 before it has finished. Anything that can go wrong, still has time to go wrong. What more can we expect? Reindeer going on strike over Christmas? No flying for Santa. Maybe it would be as well, if air-traffic control decides to down radars again.

There's something apt about Murphy's Law and the air-traffic controllers. The Murphy of the Law was engaged in the measurement of G-forces in conditions of aircraft acceleration. The experiments, that went wrong, used crash test dummies and then chimps. Air-traffic control has made dummies and monkeys out of all those who had hoped for even moderate acceleration of airplanes.

The other monkeys, those of the Spanish Government, are calling for stiff prison sentences for the controllers. Cage the gorillas of the radar towers as punishment for their guerrilla tactics. It's still hard to understand quite why the controllers' mass-sicky strike took place, given that they had appeared to have been thrown some bananas back in summer.

What can go wrong will go wrong.

And it did over the "puente" of the Constitution Day/Immaculate Conception holiday bridge. Airlines and Mallorca's hoteliers and other businesses have described the impact of the strike as catastrophic: reservations cancelled, restaurants not as thronged as they might have been. There again, catastrophe has been 2010's fellow traveller, or would have been if travel had been as smooth as one would have hoped. But then, it wouldn't have been catastrophic.

The strike that affected the "puente" negatively was a bridge too far for Mallorca. If the island could speak it would be protesting that it has had it up to its neck this year.

Up to the neck, well, up to the waist at any rate, was where many found themselves barely 48 hours into the start of the season in early May. The animals were boarding two by two - chimps, gorillas, whatever - as Arks were floated on apocalyptic floods.

An Ark can be useful when what can go wrong does go wrong. No one saw it coming, until it started blinding aircraft pilots. Air-traffic control had more than just aircraft images on the screen to monitor when Iceland blew its gasket. If Murphy's Law hadn't existed, it would have come into being in April. As it turned out, it wasn't the end of the tourism world as we know it. But there remains a fear that what goes wrong could go seriously wrong.

The air-traffic controllers' strike and the volcano, catastrophes both if you believe in hyperbole, point to one great worry - the vulnerability and fragility of Mallorca. Paradise islands are all very well, except when they are cut off from the infernos of the mainlands. While some extra Arks set sail and came to the rescue from the fallout from the fiery hell of Eyjafjallajökull, they were a drop in the Mediterranean of mass transport to the havens of Barcelona, Valencia or Dénia.

There were catastrophes that weren't catastrophes. The public-sector and general strikes were whimpers of indifference. The anarchy predicted for Greece is nowhere to be seen on a Spanish horizon, but the economic hurricane could yet rip Spain to shreds and brew up a tidal wave of discontent that roars, rolls and crashes in from a deceptively serene skyline.

And in the face of hurricanes and tidal waves, air-traffic controllers will be irrelevant and Arks will be redundant, because Mallorca's vulnerability and fragility have a far greater threat. This is not Murphy's Law. We know what can go wrong as it already has. It won't happen next year or the year after next. You know what it is. Give it 40 years is what the climate changers believe.

Then you'll really be talking about catastrophe.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Air-traffic controllers' strike - update

It now seems that the strike will take place across three days - 14, 15, 16 August (according to the report in "The Diario"). Last-minute bookings to Mallorca are going to be seriously affected; up to 30% of bookings being lost, it is being claimed.

It Just Gets Worse - Part Two: Air-traffic controllers' strike

In early season it was the volcanic ash, now there is due to be more air chaos. Air-traffic controllers have voted (massively) to strike later this month. The date is likely to be 18 or 20 August. They haven't ruled out further strikes.

The controllers have got a real beef with the government. Rest periods and salaries have been cut, the latter - in practice - by up to 40%. There has been a sort of strike already, if one believes that taking a "sicky", which has been happening, constitutes a withdrawal of labour. Unlike their French colleagues who have been on strike and do so on a seemingly regular basis, the Spanish air-traffic controllers have historically not been militant. This will in fact be the first official strike they have ever called.

The hyperbole has of course gone into overdrive. It will be a disaster. But of course it won't be. What would be were if a lack of rest were to result in a mid-air collision. The controllers do have a point. Nevertheless, bang in the middle of high season is hardly convenient. It will cause considerable disruption, though quite how strong the strike will be is unclear. There are legal requirements as to maintaining "minimum services". The rail service, for example, is covered by these. But there are no precedents for air-traffic controllers. While the railways can help to ease the transport burden on the mainland, Mallorca and the islands have little by way of a fall-back position, as was exposed by the volcano; increased ferry services make little impression. One option, being floated by the government, would be to bring in the military, but the controllers argue that this would be unsafe as there would be a lack of expertise in handling the sheer volume of air traffic.

A wider question, set against the austerity measures that the Spanish Government has brought in and will add to next year, is whether others will follow the air-traffic controllers. A general strike of all sectors, not just public, is meant to be occurring at the end of September. Though Spain has not experienced the kind of unrest that Greece has, there was an alarming report in "The Observer" at the weekend in which the Greek security forces warned of a descent into violence, provoked by the country's own austerity measures.

The air-traffic controllers could just be a start.


QUIZ:
Yesterday - Deacon Blue, "Your Town", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm7xlyH3YsI


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.