Larnaca - Paphos airports are paralyzed

Twelve-hour warning strike at the Control Towers of Larnaca and Paphos airports, from 09.00 – 21.00, announced for Thursday December 15 the Air Traffic Controllers (VET) on the occasion of the adoption by the Parliament, as they report, of the adoption of the government bills for the economy, without special regulation for the VET…

In today's announcement, the Pancyprian Union of Air Traffic Controllers (PASEEK) also states that on the day of the strike there will be an abstention from overtime work at the Nicosia Area Control Center and expresses its regret to the passengers who will be affected and asks for their understanding.

The strike, according to the VET union, will affect all flights to and from Larnaca and Paphos airports, except for VIP (Heads of State or Government) flights, state or military aircraft flights, hospital or humanitarian flights, technical flights. problem or emergency and search and rescue flights.

According to PASEEK, the VET, realizing the critical situation of the Cypriot economy, on November 15, 2011 "we voluntarily authorized the General Accounting Office of the Republic to cut us regularly and even retroactively from September all the extraordinary and periodic contributions due to us from first package of measures, despite the fact that last August our Parliament exempted by law from these contributions to the basis of EU legislation ".

"Unfortunately, the Ministry of Finance, instead of appreciating our practical voluntary contribution, chose to submit to the Parliament an amending bill to remove our exemption from the contributions of the first package, while at the same time trying to include us in the provisions for freezing salaries and ATA. leveling and distorting concept of uniformity in the public sector and ignoring the specifics of our payroll ", adds

He states that “salaries, allowances, overtime compensation, increases, pensions, ATA and in general all our earnings do not cost a single cent to the Cypriot taxpayer and to the state coffers, but are fully covered by the overflight fees and have been agreed with the airlines until 2014 ”and adds that“ any reduction of our earnings will result in millions of euros being returned to these airlines and lost from the coffers of the state where they would end up as income tax and from the Cypriot economy as foreign exchange ” .

The VET union states that "it should be clear to everyone that this experiment has already been tried in other European countries and failed (Spain and Portugal have reduced their VET earnings in various ways) and the only thing that has been achieved is for airlines to ask to reimburse them millions of euros not paid as agreed remuneration for VET ”.

The same tactic, he continues, "followed the Greek Ministry of Finance with colleagues there, who were forced to report this attitude to Eurocontrol, since in the meantime tens of millions of euros were lost from the Greek economy."

He adds that "the Greek Ministry of Finance recently revised its stance and excluded VETs from the cuts, considering that their earnings not only do not burden the state budget but instead contribute to increasing its revenues."

"For these reasons, we consider unacceptable the fact that, despite the financial crisis, the Ministry of Finance is willing to let tens of millions of euros be lost over time for the Cypriot economy for the sake of the supposed uniformity of all public sector employees," concludes PASEEK.