TRAVELLERS TO Spain, including tourists using the Mediterranean airports, have been suffering long delays in recent weeks as dozens of air traffic controllers have called in sick, leaving control towers understaffed.
Delays of between 30 minutes and two hours have been reported in Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Palma de Mallorca so far this week.
Spanish air traffic controllers are among the most highly paid in Europe – they can earn as much as €300,000 a year. In February this year the government passed a law increasing their working hours, reducing overtime and making them public employees under the umbrella of the airport authorities, AENA.
Their unions have denied they are on strike. They blame overwork, “stress” and “nervous exhaustion” for their sudden ill health.
José Blanco, the minister responsible for transport and infrastructure, however, said it was “suspicious” that the influx of sick notes coincided with the introduction of this law. In January, just before the law came in, 1,200 controllers called in sick, but the number had almost quadrupled by June to 4,300.
Mr Blanco also wondered, if so many of them were suffering from psychological problems, whether they were fit to be employed in such a responsible task as air traffic control.
The minister has been in talks with the defence minister to consider putting the military into the control towers to keep traffic moving – a step permitted under the 2003 Air Security Law.
Not surprisingly, the controllers union, USCA, has criticised this idea. “They are not trained to control civilian traffic and are not accustomed to high-density traffic,” said their spokesman.
Meanwhile, flights in and out of Paris and across France were severely disrupted yesterday when controllers staged a one-day strike in protest at plans to unify western European airspace.
The strike, called by several controllers unions, forced the cancellation of about 20 per cent of flights at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport. Paris Orly was worse hit with about 50 per cent of cancellations, civil aviation authorities said.
– (Additional reporting: Reuters)