The state-owned Aeromexico airline cancelled 270 flights Tuesday after 7,500 airline ground crew workers struck to protest the planned sale of 13 aircraft and anticipated firings of workers by the troubled carrier. Aeromexico's 43 aircraft were grounded in airports in Mexico and abroad after unionized ground workers walked off their jobs at 2:00 p.m. EDT, said Enrique Gutierrez Ortega, spokesman for the Aeronave de Mexico parent company. Gutierrez Ortega estimated during a telephone interview that revenue losses would amount to more than $2 million for each day of the strike. The strikers, members of the Aeromexico National Technical Workers Union, were demanding a halt to company plans to sell 13 aircraft and lay off an unspecified number of airline workers to cut operating losses. Some 17,000 airline passengers had their flights cancelled because of the walkout, Gutierrez Ortega said. ``The passengers most affected are those who had flights to New York and Paris'' and were unable to quickly arrange alternative connections, he said. Union spokesman Rene Arce told The Associated Press the strike would continue ``indefinitely as long as the company doesn't revoke its decision to sell the planes and terminate union workers.'' Aeromexico officials were appealing to the federal Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to declare the strike illegal, Gutierrez Ortega said. The government did not plan to take over the nation's second-largest airline to keep it operating, the Communications and Transportation Department said in a statement released Tuesday.
