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THE ETF REJECTS THE MARKET-DRIVEN APPROACH FOR THE SINGLE EUROPEAN SKY!
Following the report on the Future of the Single European Sky drafted by the ‘Wise Persons Group’ (WPG) created by the European Commission, the ETF deplores that the recommendations are oriented to please the airlines to the detriment of the other stakeholders. The ATM staff are more and more critical to the method which consists of listening mainly officials who have a business-driven sensitiveness against the quality of the service. For the ETF, it is clear that the safety and the security of the passengers and the non-flying citizens on ground are paramount.
The European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), which represents more than 15.000 Air Traffic Controllers and all the other categories of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) staff, noticed, for instance, that the Social Dialogue doesn’t exist for the ‘Wise Persons Group’ while it is indispensable to smoothly achieve all the changes proposed in the report. At EU level, the social partners can make recommendations to their members notably to create success stories through a good and genuine social dialogue.
The ETF is not rejecting a digital European sky by a progressive increase of the level of automation support, new technologies as well as the use of interoperable systems. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the modernisation of the European ATM leading to a new organisation of the work, especially at the workplace, needs to be carefully monitor notably through a change management process established together with the staff representatives at all levels. It is a pity that staff such as AIS/AIM had no representative in this WPG.
The ATM is a service of general interest and it is the ETF view that safety seems to play a marginal role for the WPG compared to other criteria such as economic performance. It is the case when the WPG proposes to set up an independent competent economic regulator which would oversee the performance of service providers. The ETF is totally opposed to such a body which will be lobbied by the airlines associations, without a public control.
At the same time, Eurocontrol would have more power as Network Manager (NM), with the risk of becoming a new monopoly, which is against the EU policy. The most important is that the WPG does not mention that the first mission of the NM is safety and not a creator of capacity. Strangely, they want to empower it for managing the capacities of the service providers but not towards the behaviour of the airspace users which is causing a lot of inefficiencies in the network.
In conclusion, the ETF calls the European Commission to organise a round table with all concerned parties to discuss this report in order to come to a more balanced approach. There would be a real added value to ask the opinion of all the EU ATM staff representatives to make the Single European Sky more efficient in the future.
RP3 Open letter to EU member States
Following the adoption of the new performance and charging regulation, the Commission is currently in the process of setting the targets for RP3. We have joined with the other PSOs in expressing our concern at the proposed targets. The targets are broadly more of the same that we saw in RP2 and will do nothing to ease the current capacity problems. The level of cost reduction required is worrying and we are having great difficulty in seeing just how capacity can be improved whilst making savings.
At the next Single Sky Committee meeting at the end of March, it is expected that the Member State representatives will vote on the proposed targets. We have, with the other PSOs, written to those state representatives expressing our concern and asking them to push for a modest rise in costs to help resolve the ongoing capacity problems.
ATM Unions determined to defend the right to strike
Our Rights, Your Safety
The Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination (ATCEUC) and the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) have launched today a campaign to oppose the European Commission will to shape and limit the Air Traffic Controllers(ATCOs)’ right to strike. Indeed, Commission encroaches the national sovereignty of Member States as the right to strike falls outside the scope of the Treaties.
The recommendations of the European Commission that are inside the Communication ‘Aviation: Open and Connected Europe (COM 2017) 286 final’ dated on 8 June 2017 significantly encroach the national sovereignty of Member States and contradict the Article 153 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which clearly states that the right to strike is excluded from EU competencies.
ETF and ATCEUC joint press conference
ETF and ATCEUC joint press conference to launch our new campaign:
On 20th November at the International Press Center in Brussels
Airlines cause 1 million minutes of delay while blaming others
The undersigned ATM Professional Staff Organisations note with great regret yet another attack of Airlines for Europe (A4E) on the European Air Traffic Management in the form of a joint letter of A4E member airlines’ CEOs to the European Air Navigation Service providers (ANSPs). The letter enumerates a number of ATM-related issues as cause for the delays.
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Joint Public Statement on the Regulation of Remote Towers Operation
Remote Tower technology is used, or planned to be used in the very next future, by more and more Air Navigation Service Providers.
Yet the ATM staff representative organizations ETF and ATCEUC do not believe that the regulatory approach to this subject by EASA is appropriate and effective. After months trying to convince EASA to reconsider the approach and to listen to our concerns, we decided time has come to go public with this joint public statement you find attached.
ETF STRONGLY OPPOSES THE ATTACK ON FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF ATCOs
As part of its package entitled ‘Open and connected Europe’, the European Commission announced today its recommendations on the so-called service continuity, including measures affecting the right to strike. The ETF strongly deplores this attempt to limit indirectly this fundamental right guaranteed by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights by proposing measures such as individual notification, protection of overflights and air traffic peak periods.
The proposed measures significantly encroach the national sovereignty of Member States and contradict the Article 153 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which clearly states that the right to strike is excluded from EU competencies. This article must be understood as a whole, including the way this right is being organised at national level.
Reality check: what’s behind flight delays ?
Efficiency, capacity and growth in European aviation from Prospect Union
What is the true economic impact of air traffic control (ATC) strikes in Europe? Following the allegations expressed by airlines about the consequences resulting of ATC strikes the European Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination (ATCEUC) and the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) have unveiled today at a press conference in Brussels the real data behind the causes and consequences of flight delays. Our research based on official EUROCONTROL data has namely exposed that airlines themselves are by far the largest cause of delays and account for more than 50 percent of all delays in air traffic.
The right to workers' representation and collective action are enshrined in the founding Treaties of the European Union, while these Treaties stipulate that the EU has no competence on the right of strike which remains fully in the remit of individual Member States. In addition, international evidence shows that free and independent trade unions make a net positive contribution to productivity, competitiveness as well as safety. While we don't deny that industrial action has consequences on the traffic, we reiterate that it belongs to the fundamental rights of workers.
Time for Aviation to embody Social Europe 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome
This year we, as Europeans, will celebrate 60 years of the greatest and most successful peace accord in the world. 60 years ago, the Treaty of Rome was signed laying its foundations, and those of the world’s biggest international single market. The economic integration of 1958 then received its proper political dimension through the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.
In his opening statement to the European Parliament in 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker reinforced the commitment to a social market economy. Furthermore, the Aviation Strategy in Europe of December 2015, includes the need to reinforce the social agenda and create high quality jobs in aviation.
We, as the aviation professionals, who physically bring the countries of Europe together strive not only for the highest standards of safety for those in our care, but to embody the European project in our everyday work.
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