Air Travellers Stranded As Traffic Controllers Ground Flights In West, Central Africa

Air travellers to West and Central African countries including Nigeria were on Friday night and early morning on Saturday, stranded at airports across Africa causing chaos for passengers travelling to Europe, the United States.

The airlines flying in the continent, however, cancelled flights going to West and Central African countries, including the O.R Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg in South Africa.

However, Air Traffic Controllers (ATC), Nigeria said the nation’s airspace is open to foreign airlines.

LEADERSHIP gathered that the cancellation of flights was abruptly done by major airlines such as Asky, Emirates, Ethiopian, Proflight Zambia, among others, having been told that air transport workers under the auspices of the Agency for Aerial Navigation in African and Madagascar (ASECNA) had embarked on strike that will last for 48 hours.

ASECNA regulates air traffic in 18 countries in West and Central Africa, began strike on Friday following a disagreement over their working conditions and pay rise as the workers were said to have flouted a Court order purportedly preventing them from embarking on the strike.

Check-in counters of major airlines at the O.R Tambo International Airport in South Africa on Friday night were deserted as many air flights ticketing workers had left their duty post as at the time of this report.

However, Friday night was a busy one for travel, flights to and from Europe and the United States were halted, said Reuters’ reporters at Senegal’s Blaise Diagne International Airport and in the United States.

ASECNA told customers to check airline websites for updates.

“In spite of the prohibition of the strike by all the courts … the Union of Air Traffic Controllers’ Unions (USYCAA) has launched a wildcat strike,” ASECNA said on Friday.

“We have already exhausted both administrative and institutional remedies in the management of this crisis, but we have in front of us trade unionists who are stubborn to do whatever they want,” ASECNA’s head of human resources, Ceubah Guelpina, told a press conference.

The USYCAA union said in a statement that its members would cease providing services to all but “sensitive” flights until their demands are satisfied.

According to Reuters, a leader of Senegalese air traffic controllers, Paul Francois Gomis, said that some union members in Cameroon, Congo and the Comoros had been arrested for participating in the strike.

However, the President of ATCs, Nigeria, Yomi Agoro, said Nigeria is not a member of the ASECNA association, hence its airspace is opened to foreign and local flights

“ASECNA is for the francophone countries and we are surrounded by these countries but we are not in same association. I can confirm to you that flight is already on in Nigeria currently,” Agoro said.