Air control strike to hit Macedonia flights

Skopje and Ohrid airports to be affected by strike
Macedonian Air Traffic Control has said it will go on strike on September 19, which will in turn cause disruption to airlines operating flights in and out of Skopje and Ohrid. The Union of Macedonian Air Traffic Controllers is requesting higher pay and better working conditions. Talks between the union and government broke down recently. The union says that the government has issued threats to the air controllers, saying that they will lose their jobs if they go on strike. Negotiations between the two sides regarding the collective agreement have been ongoing for the past year.

M-NAV, the Macedonian Air Traffic Control Agency has strongly denied claims made by the union. It hopes that a collective agreement will be signed within the next 10 days in order for the strike to be avoided. M-NAV has seen record growth in the number of handled flights and is now the 13th busiest air traffic control agency in Europe, according to EUROCONTROL.

Macedonia’s air traffic controllers staged a strike back in 2009, disrupting flights for 6 hours. In the former Yugoslavia, Air Traffic Control went on strike once, in 1985. They were quickly replaced by military personnel and the strike went by largely unnoticed.

Comments

  1. Whew. I got spooked when I read this, but I checked my ticket and see that I'm flying out of there a few days before.

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  2. Anonymous11:17

    I guess the 5000.- EUR monthly they get is not enough for out Macedonian hot shots controllers...

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  3. Anonymous14:51

    They actually get around 1500 Euro, on average.

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  4. Anonymous14:57

    1500.- EUR is the salary for the drivers and janitors working for M-NAV. Controller's basic pay is 3000.- EUR per month. Due to shortage all of them work overtime and get 5000.- without exception. In the same time, the controllers are not allowing any new students to validate their licenses, fearing they won't have the chance to work overtime.

    Don't know how possible it is to fire some of them that are so greedy, but I think it is about time.

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  5. Anonymous16:22

    Air traffic controllers are the best paid public sector workers in Serbia as well.

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  6. Anonymous16:25

    Idiots! They handle 20 flights a day and they want better working conditions? I'll switch with them right now. Ivey there are people willing to take their job for half the pay.

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  7. Only on Balkans...

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  8. What an idiots.. the average salary is about 300 euro in Macedonia. They get up to 5000. What a fools, the government should replace them with military personnel again!

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  9. Anonymous17:57

    What is happening with Flydubai flights to Belgrade?
    sorry for being off topic

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  10. Anonymous19:47

    Air traffic controllers in Skopje DO NOT get 5000EUR per month! Not even the CEO of the company gets that much. Overtime is not payed in Skopje since there is no collective agreement signed. And I wonder where did you get the information that no new students get validated?!

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  11. Anonymous20:28

    they get 800-1500 eur.(acording to the govement statistic agency air trafic controllers average salary is 67.000 macedonian denars or 1100 eur) and if they are 13 busiet air trafic control agency (acording to my info M-nav is on the 9 place in europe not 13) i think that they have more then 20 Flight per day:) From jan to apr 2011 they handle 27.349 so it's about 230 per flight per day.

    and they also work 10-12 h per day.

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  12. Anonymous21:12

    I work in a bank that handles the salaries of M-NAV (Ohridska Banka, SG) and the lowest salaries I have seen are in the 1000 eur mark up to 8-9000 eur per month probably for the top management. Usually the salaries are between 4 and 5000 eur.

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  13. Anonymous00:15

    @last Anonymous
    If you really work for the bank and have this information it is not ethical to share it like this. There are lots of talking about western standards on this forum. Any western bank would immediately fire employee who would share information about its customers on the web.

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  14. Peter from Sydney04:17

    EX YU, have you thought about opening a forum section to the site? I think it would go great!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous14:05

    Can you please elaborate a bit more on where you got this information from? I fine tooth combed all of the online Macedonian media searching for it, and all relevant news items state that there might be a strike if an agreement isn't reached by the *end of September*. It would be useful to know how credible your source is, as misinformation can spread like wildfire over the web. There is an significant amount of responsibility associated with placing reports like these in the public domain, as they can affect people's travel plans.

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  16. Anonymous14:10

    Perhaps you used this source:

    http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=mk&u=http://www.sitel.com.mk/video/biznis/sindikatite-vo-kontrola-na-letanje-najavuvaat-shtrajk&ei=qaRsToDxCcej4gSR_d2VBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25D0%25BA%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BD%25D1%2582%25D1%2580%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B0%2B%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B5%25D1%2582%25D0%25B0%25D1%259A%25D0%25B5%2B%25D1%2588%25D1%2582%25D1%2580%25D0%25B0%25D1%2598%25D0%25BA%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3D713%26prmd%3Dimvns

    But it states that the air traffic control may strike if an agreement is not reached until the 19th of September, not that they will strike on the 19th of September.

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  17. Anonymous01:34

    In macedonian air traffic control the Air Traffic Control stuff have average salary of 756 euro(brutto 873 euro)acording to valid official statistic.Also ATC have moratorium(stop on) for new employment until 2020.

    ReplyDelete

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