Europe's skies were disrupted on 19 June by air traffic control industrial action in five countries, reducing the number of flights handled by the Belgium-based Eurocontrol Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU) by around a third. In all cases, the controllers' reason for striking was the same - to oppose the Single European Sky project approved in principle by the governments of all 15 European Union states and most of the 31 Eurocontrol member states.
The industrial action took place in France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Portugal, and both the duration of the stoppages and the traffic affected varied. French controllers were the most militant, with a stoppage from 04.00 and 21.00 GMT, and only listed flights originating or terminating in French airspace permitted to operate, resulting is around 2,000 fewer flights in the Paris flight information region than usual, according to the CFMU.
In Greece and Italy, says CFMU, the disruption was relatively slight because the action was planned for 4h in Greece and 1h in Italy, with overflying traffic not affected. For 4h Portugal banned all in-bound and out-bound traffic, and restricted overflights to four contingency routes. In Hungary, only Budapest airport was affected and overflying traffic was not.
Meanwhile in the UK, the controllers union Prospect is in dispute with National Air Traffic Services (NATS) over a pay deal that is worth 6% over two years, saying that the controllers feel strongly enough about the issue to consider industrial action if necessary. Prospect said last week that talks with NATS had started again.
Source: Flight International
