As planes could be left grounded, an air traffic wage strike could result in extreme disruption to South Africa’s air travel, Cape {town} Etc reports.
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If an agreement between the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) and the South African Transport Allied Workers Union (Satawu) cannot be reached, South Africa’s airspace will suffer.
Employees are demanding 6.5% while the ATNS offered 2% less than that.
Last week, negotiations were interrupted and the union warned that if a settlement could not be reached, workers would ensure the interruption of operations.
The Citizen has advised that the consequences of this would be devastating to the aviation sector as well as the economy at large.
When commenting on flight delays, an airline executive noted that ‘it is a very costly burden for airlines and it’s the airlines that carry the can.’
In July, ATNS closed certain airports as a result of delays in standard upgrades over the course of ten days. This resulted in 692 flight delays across the country.
Thereby, a 7 day strike could result in approximately 50 000 passengers being stranded per day at the OR Tambo International Airport alone.
Each week 4 980 landings take place across the country. The majority of these landings stem from domestic airlines, which are still recovering from the financial strain caused by the pandemic.
‘At this stage we are working with ATNS management to best understand the risks and plan accordingly’ commented Kirby Gordon of FlySafair.
A representative of Airlink claimed that the airline would attempt to lessen any potential negative impacts on passengers.
However, Mphilo Dlamini, ATNS spokesperson, stated that there is no threat of a strike.
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According to Dlamini, the matter has been referred to the CCMA (Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration) and is now at the conciliation stage.
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Amanda Tshemese spoke on behalf of the union claiming that labour has rejected that ‘nonsense’.
She went on to say that if a strike is necessary, it will arise.
‘They are greedy and refusing to pay the real workers who are making billions of rands for this company.’
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