The strike is to take place from midnight on 10 July to a minute to midnight on 16 July, and is to be in effect on all the company's flights that start or stop over in Portugal.

The action covers services such “assistance of any task on the ground that is ordered by the company, namely instruction or other service in which the crew member provides activity, medical inspections in the ambit of work medicine, situations of travel (…) or any other actions of training on the ground, travel to company premises so long as expressly ordered" to do so by the company as part of their job.

Bruno Fialho of the SNPVAC union told Lusa that discrimination on working hours, relative to other employees of the TAP group of which Portugália has formed a part since 2007, is the main reason for the strike.

"The same rights, the same ... treatment is not been granted" to Portugália crew," he said, adding that the more difficult working hours penalises those affected in psychological and physical terms.

As for skeleton services during the strike, the formal notice states that the union will "assure essential social needs in the period set for the stoppage" - a reference to urgent flights due to a natural disaster, and also certain flights to the Azores and Madeira.