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Air Traffic Management personnel prepared for change in their industry

30 March 2009

“Involvement of ATM trade-unions through ETF is essential for success” says Laurence King, President of ETF-JATMWG.

The European Parliament and the European Council have just finalized the Single European Sky legislation which should be formally adopted later in 2009. Air Traffic Controllers, Air Traffic Safety Electronics Personnel and all the other ATM Personnel consider it as a major issue for the future of their industry.
“Thanks to ETF, we have strived all along this legislative process to bring our trade union and professional expertise. We have formulated several proposals which were key in the debate. We focused on the performance of the system primarily on the safety objective. We will continue to push this priority in the implementation phase” says King.

François Ballestero, ETF Political Secretary says: “The competence of personnel, which is extremely important for air safety, has been introduced. Involvement of personnel is now officially recognized and consultation of the social dialogue committee is guaranteed. This is a tool we will use with determination to enhance all the ongoing projects brought forward by Single Sky, SESAR and EASA”.

Promoting an effective safety culture will be pivotal in all the different initiatives to be launched following adoption of this new legislation. The safety oversight and the learning process from incident reports are the indispensable means to achieve this goal.

Convergence and pooling of technology programs through SESAR will enable a coherent deployment of new ATM systems. Involvement of staff will provide the necessary technical and social expertise for this huge undertaking.
ETF looks for a sensible and cooperative implementation of the Single Sky. “The current economic downturn should bring all the stakeholders back to reality. Competition is an extravagance we cannot afford. Europe’s aviation needs a cooperative model able to deliver a safer, greener and more efficient approach” says King.

ETF is disappointed that the idea of unbundling of services was not completely avoided in the adopted regulation even. “ETF will stay ready in order to avoid any attempts to liberalise the ATM industry in the future” concludes Ballestero.

Please contact François Ballestero for more information: f.ballestero@etf-europe.org

ENDS

Related documents:

ETF PRESS RELEASE SES II 300309 (44kb PDF)

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