Tourists to suffer as Europe’s air traffic controllers call for strike

Passengers including tourists brace for chaos as Europe’s air traffic controllers plan to go for a strike on January 29th. According to reports, up to 140000 air traffic controllers have joined

hands to raise their voice against new centralised initiatives by the European Commission go ahead. This could affect passengers across 28 countries, reports suggest.

The Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Co-ordination (ATCEUC) is continuing to voice against the Single European Sky (SES2+) package, which it feels will compromise safety via ‘unrealistic cost reduction and unreasonable traffic forecasts’.

Currently, there are around 26000 flights operating daily in Europe, a figure which is set to double by the end of the decade.

In a statement released last week, ATCEUC President Volker Dick said, ‘Last October, ATCEUC was given assurances that the European Commission was finally willing to discuss our views on the performance scheme, regarding the lack of real safety targets and the unrealistic cost efficiency targets.

‘Having this in mind, all 28 unions members of ATCEUC decided unanimously to postpone the Action Day scheduled for the 10 October.’

‘But just one day after our meeting with the Commission, and our previous rejection of the proposal, already including over-ambitious targets, we came across an EC proposal even more unrealistic, clearly showing that the former declaration of good faith, in solving the things out through an open dialogue, was a big fraud,’ he winds up.

with inputs from dailymail.co.uk