Domestic travellers stranded as Air Traffic Controllers down tools

A partial withdrawal of service by a section of Air Traffic Controllers (GHATCA) has left domestic travellers stranded at the Kotoka, Kumasi and Tamale airport terminals.

International flights are however, not affected.

The Director-General of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Air Commodore Kwame Mamphey who admitted the strike in an interview with Radio Gold Tuesday morning, said it is in connection with a number of issues the controllers have raised and were being addressed at both board and ministerial levels.  {mp3}air-commodore-kwame-mumphey-controllers-strike-04-03-14{/mp3}

GHATCA had previously raised issues over safety, operational, technical and management issues confronting the GCAA and served notice the issues be addressed or they would down their tools.

They had claimed, among other problems, that the GCAA was to agree with Togo and Benin on the management of the upper airspaces with Ghana; the inability of Ghana to attain FAA Category 1 rating and attendant safety hazards, as well as the blacklisting of Ghana registered offshore cargo planes.

But Air Commodore Kwame Mamphey, who “apologised sincerely” for the inconvenience caused the travelling public and asked for their patience, said the GCCA had a contingency plan in place and that the traffic disruption should be resolved in about two hours to enable domestic travellers make their journeys.

He was also hopeful the issues underlying the strike should not take too long to be resolved and appealed to the striking workers to return to work.

“They have several concerns which they have raised at the board level, at the ministerial level, the minister has had a number of meetings with them to try to resolve the issue and the minister has assured them of her fullest co-operation and they decide to go ahead with whatever that they intended to do so it’s at the moment unfortunate. There is a committee that has been set up by the board and the committee is yet to submit its report so I think that at this moment in time my only appeal to them is for them to get back to work, let’s sit and continue the discussion.”