Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

TRAVEL NEWS

Copenhagen Airport delays: Air traffic controllers borrowed to ease shortage

Air traffic control company Naviair will loan air traffic control staff from the smaller Roskilde Airport to solve persistent flight delays out of Copenhagen.

Published: 16 May 2023 17:22 CEST

Copenhagen Airport delays: Air traffic controllers borrowed to ease shortage

Air traffic control staff are to be borrowed from nearby Roskilde Airport to address staffing issues at Copenhagen. File photo: Martin Sylvest/Ritzau Scanpix

The loan of staff from Roskilde Airport will be in place throughout the peak summer season, Naviair said in a statement.

The decision has been made to prevent major flight delays affecting passengers at Copenhagen Airport.

Naviair said that the solution will give it enough cover for most of the summer flight traffic without lengthy delays or asking air traffic controllers to work overtime.

Capacity at Roskilde Airport will be reduced during the period.

“The plan is going to have some consequences. The reallocation of air traffic controllers means reduced capacity at Roskilde Airport, whose users we naturally apologise to,” Naviair director of traffic Thorsten Elkjær said in the press statement.

READ ALSO: Airline Norwegian threatens to ‘find alternative’ to Copenhagen Airport over delays

The shortage of air traffic controllers and related dispute between their trade union and Naviair, their employer, has resulted in delays for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Copenhagen Airport in recent weeks.

Naviair has asked its staff to take on extra shifts due to the shortage but has also said it has increased intake on training programmes to eventually increase the number of staff available.

The air traffic controllers have said that the overtime is not at a manageable level, and that they have taken 1,500 additional shifts so far this year.

Figures from April show that some 45 percent of flights from Copenhagen Airport were delayed last month and the issue has continued into May.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of €420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of €2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some €200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of €2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

Url copied to clipboard!