Air Traffic Controllers suspend industrial action for 2 weeks to avert flight disruption

Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers Association, NATCA said it has put on hold its ongoing industrial action for two weeks pending the implementation of the agreement reached with Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA. It will be recalled the controllers started ” control flow ” and disruption of early morning domestic flights out of airports in the country on Tuesday morning. According to the President of NATCA, Comrade Abayomi Agoro, a meeting was held on Tuesday night between the Managing Director of NAMA and NATCA Executives. He also said the meeting discussed extensively all the issues highlighted by NATCA and it was agreed that a ” 4-man follow up and implementation group be submitted by NATCA ” to work with NAMA management team immediately.

He further said that management of NAMA will immediately ” implement 3 crucial demands from NATCA as a show of goodwill as others are being worked on for implementation.” Agoro said “As a fallout of our actions, the MD/CEO of NAMA requested for a meeting with NATCA EXCO. The meeting discussed extensively on all the issues highlighted by NATCA and it was agreed that a 4-man follow up and implementation group be submitted by NATCA to work with management team immediately. That management of NAMA will immediately implement 3 crucial demands from NATCA as a show of goodwill as others are being worked on for implementation. That as a sign of reciprocating management’s action, NATCA shall suspend all further action on all forms of reactions as it further engages management on implementation.

“That the MD/CEO shall be the direct head of the implementation group.

In consideration of all of the above, NATCA has agreed to suspend any further protests or actions for 2 weeks pending the outcome of the implementation of the 3 items agreed to,” the NATCA President said.

 He also clarified that the  controllers decided to embarked on  “Air Traffic Flow Control ” because an operational ATC flow control is part of the tools recognised by ICAO, and used worldwide in the event that there “exist a deficiency or inability of the  Air Traffic Management, ATM, system to deliver a safe, efficient and effective ATC service.” He also added that NATCA decided to embark on such process and to use such tool, after a deliberate due diligence indicated that ” due to some failures in the ATM system, it’s members could no longer guarantee the delivery of a safe, efficient and effective ATC service”