Warsaw — Polish air passengers are preparing for the turmoil this weekend.
Starting Saturday, Poland will limit the opening hours of two airports in Warsaw. This is due to the ongoing debate over wages and working conditions between Polish air traffic control authorities and flight controllers.
With this move, Warsaw Chopin, Poland’s largest airport, and the small Modlin Airport, north of the city serving Ryanair, will only operate from 9:30 am to 5 pm, resulting in approximately 300 flights a day. It will be stopped.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateushmoravietski said the airport due to the looming threat of more flight controllers quitting their jobs if the current deadlocked negotiations with the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (PANSA) do not yield results. I issued an order to limit the operation of.
“If you don’t have enough controllers, you’ll need to limit your flights,” Morawicki said Tuesday.
Morawicki also jabed the controller, saying, “This is a small group of professionals who make a lot of money in Warsaw and I think we could compromise and reach an agreement here.” He added that they have “some of the best working conditions in Europe” and pointed out that they only work 30 hours a week.
Affected airlines are threatening to seek damages from PANSA if they are unable to take off from the Polish capital.
At the heart of the problem is that the Warsaw flight controller refused to sign up for the new payment rules. PANSA said in January that monthly wages rarely reach 100,000 zloty (€ 21,500), but are “impossible” to maintain. The new rules require a maximum wage level of 45,000 zloty per month.
Of the 208 air traffic controllers who worked earlier this year, 44 reportedly resigned in February and another 131 are reportedly preparing to leave by the end of April.
The Prime Minister’s order also begins with three airports in London (Heathrow, Luton and Stansted), followed by major airports in Frankfurt, New York, Chicago, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul and Rome, with priority given to 32 airports connecting to Warsaw. Shows a list. .. Also, flights from Warsaw Chopin take precedence over flights from Modlin.
Polish airports in Szczecin and Rzeszow are also on the list, the latter being an important point for transporting troops and other aid to the war-torn Ukraine.
LOT, the Polish state-owned airline, said:
But its rivals are fueling the restrictions in favor of Polish state-owned airlines.
In a statement, Ryanair said, “The Prime Minister has arbitrarily selected 32 destinations offered by Warsaw to prioritize if the expected ATC capacity collapses on May 1.” Said.
According to Ryanair, excluding routes to Stockholm and Milan is “unexplained” and “includes LOT routes to Berlin and Vilnius, which are only a few by train or road. Easy access in a few hours. “
The low-cost airline told Adina Valeen of the European Transport Commission and Marguerite Vestager, head of competition, “to ensure that the basic principles of EU law are respected by the Polish Prime Minister and this explicit discrimination against Ryanair and its customers. Intervene today to prevent. ”
The committee did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
Negotiations between the flight controller union ZZKRL and PANSA resumed on Tuesday morning.
PANSA states that the new wage rules are part of a post-pandemic modernization plan, “implemented in response to an unprecedented crisis in the aviation industry and the difficult financial situation of government agencies.”
The Warsaw-based controller manages approximately 3,000 flights per day, 700 of which fly over Polish airspace. Eurocontrol, EU airspace administrator, said in an email statement that of these, there is a shortage of controllers and about 300 routes need to be changed.
Authorities are discussing with partners how best to handle these flights. This has already added to the difficult air traffic conditions in the region after sanctions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine closed the skies of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
“If we don’t reach a solution, we’ll have very bad consequences for the European aviation network,” Eurocontrol said.
Warsaw Chopin is the busiest in Poland, with nearly 100,000 flights in 2021 accounting for one-third of Poland’s total traffic. Still, Warsaw traffic is only 50% of operations compared to 2019 before the pandemic.
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