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Air Traffic Control workers react to Commission proposal

25 June 2008

On the 25th of June, the Commission published its communication to the Council and the European Parliament, amending the ‘Single European Sky’, a legislative package for Air Traffic Control adopted in April 2004.The ETF, on behalf of Europe’s Air Traffic controllers, engineers and other support staff, has made a first analysis and comment.

ETF welcomes the move towards more sustainable and performing aviation. These proposed changes will enable Air Traffic Control to be a more efficient support to the European Air Transport industry.

There is confirmation of the ‘bottom-up approach’ for establishing ‘Functional Airspace Blocks’ (FABs) in Europe, and the use of Civil Aviation Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee involving staff and employers in any changes.

However, whilst supporting the planned extension of the European Aviation Safety Agency to airports and Air Traffic Management (ATM), ETF insists that safety performance must also improve, and that this is the priority in these legislative changes. For this reason, the ETF regrets the lack of emphasis given to improving the safety environment for aviation workers, and the collection and analysis of safety data across Europe.

The ETF is not satisfied because human factors, a main feature of the ATM service, are not sufficiently recognized. The competence of ATM personnel through the extension of the licensing scheme to all the jobs within the safety chain should be a major objective of this new legislation.

Laurence King, the ETF Joint Air Traffic Management Working Group (JATMWG) President, says “this new legislation is an opportunity to get European Air Transport on the right track for safety and environmental performance. The Commission has made a first step; the Council and the European Parliament now have the initiative to complete the work incorporating our proposals.”

He continues; “We would have liked to see cooperation emphasized between Air Control Service Providers in the FABs process as the most realistic and ambitious way to make progress.”

Thanks to its pressure, the ETF is satisfied that ‘unbundling’ of ATM services is not included in this proposal. The ETF considers unbundling as an ill advised objective for the ATM sector and that any remaining open door (art 18a of service provision regulation) to enable such a proposal should be rejected.

Air traffic controllers and all ATM workers across Europe will be watching developments carefully. The ETF will do its utmost to create a safe and an efficient Single European Sky, which also meets the social needs of
the employees.

The ETF has published an expanded position paper on SES II that can be found on http://www.jatmwg.org/. , For more information, please contact François Ballestero, ETF Political Secretary, f.ballestero@etf-europe.org

ENDS

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Related documents:

ETF PRESS RELEASE SES II 250608 (77kb PDF)

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