What links four sentences in the Barcelona strike story?
A relative clause adds extra information about a person, thing, place or idea without starting a new sentence. It usually begins with who, which, that, whose or where, and it sits right after the word it describes.
This week’s story about the Barcelona ground-staff strike uses four different relative pronouns in four separate sentences: a company that handles check-in, an airport where a second strike almost happened, passengers whose flights are cancelled, and a working pattern which the union believes is unsafe. Look closely and each pronoun is doing a slightly different job.
Spot the relative clauses
Quick reminder: ground staff at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport walked out on an indefinite strike on 4 August. They work for Groundforce, a company that handles check-in, boarding and baggage. The union, CGT, says months of talks about staffing, overtime and safety training went nowhere, so members voted to strike instead.
- Why did Groundforce workers decide to strike? Months of talks with Groundforce about staffing levels, overtime hours, rest periods and safety training failed to solve the problems, so the union CGT called a strike.
- What must Groundforce still provide under Spain’s minimum-service rules? Between 35% and 80% of normal operations, depending on the route — which is why not every flight has been cancelled.
Find the pronoun
Each gap below is a real sentence from the article. Decide what the missing word refers to — a person, a thing, a place, or a whole idea — before you choose.
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Ground staff work for Groundforce, a company ____ handles check-in, boarding and baggage at the airport.
Check what the missing word refers to: is it a person, a thing, a place, or a whole idea? Here it’s a thing — the company.
‘Company’ is a thing, not a person, and the clause is defining (it tells us which company) — so ‘that’ or ‘which’ is correct, never ‘who’.
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Workers say they are asked to do too much with too few colleagues, ____ they believe makes their jobs harder and less safe.
Check what the missing word refers to: is it a person, a thing, a place, or a whole idea? Here it’s the whole idea in the first half of the sentence.
This ‘which’ doesn’t point to a single noun — it points back to the whole idea (too much work, too few colleagues). Only ‘which’ can do that job, and it needs the comma in front of it.
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A similar strike had been planned at Palma de Mallorca Airport, ____ workers from another company were due to walk out too.
Check what the missing word refers to: is it a person, a thing, a place, or a whole idea? Here it’s a place — the airport.
‘Where’ replaces ‘at that airport’ — use it whenever the relative clause describes a place.
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Passengers ____ flights are cancelled because of the strike are usually entitled to a refund or another seat.
Check what the missing word refers to: is it a person, a thing, a place, or a whole idea? Here it shows possession — the passengers’ flights.
‘Whose’ shows the flights belong to the passengers — use it for possession, for people or things.
Watch out for these mistakes
Relative clauses have two classic traps.
- ✗ The union, that represents the workers, held talks with Groundforce. → ✓ The union, which represents the workers, held talks with Groundforce. Once there’s a comma, the clause is “extra” (non-defining) — and “that” is never allowed after a comma.
- ✗ The airport who handles the most passengers in Spain closed early. → ✓ The airport that handles the most passengers in Spain closed early. “Who” is only for people — an airport (or a company, a flight, a union) needs “that” or “which”.
Now make it real
Write 1–2 true sentences about your own flying or work, each containing a relative clause — describe your airline, your aircraft type, a colleague, or your home airport.
Before you check the samples, ask yourself:
- Does the clause give the reader genuinely new information, not just repeat the noun?
- Have you picked the right pronoun for what it refers to — who/that/which for people or things, whose for possession, where for a place?
- If the clause is extra information (not needed to identify the noun), is there a comma before it?
- Does the pronoun go straight into a verb or subject, with no extra pronoun repeated afterwards (not “…who he flies…”)?
- Capital letter, full stop, correct spelling?
- I work for an airline that flies mostly short-haul routes across Europe.
- My chief pilot, whose logbook shows over 20,000 hours, taught me most of what I know about crosswind landings.
Now rewrite your sentence: could you add a comma to show the information is extra, or swap in a more precise relative pronoun?
CEFR Level B1 / ICAO Level 4
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