Civil aviation staff threaten escalation

Civil aviation employees are threatening to escalate their actions after a two-hour work stoppage failed to prompt government action on staffing issues, it emerged on Thursday.

According to a statement from the civil service union Pasydy, two days after the spontaneous work stoppage by civil aviation employees at Larnaca and Paphos airports, no relevant political or official authority had reached out to meet or communicate with them. The union noted that “this deliberate indifference raises many questions and suggests a deliberate cover-up of events or decisions made without our input.”

“Unfortunately, all the goodwill we have shown over the years and all the goodwill we have been willing to show even now, is essentially without effect. It appears that our supervisors have a different agenda,” the union said.

On Tuesday, airport service and traffic office staff stopped work at 7am, protesting what they said were broken promises from two ministers, three permanent secretaries of the transport ministry and the director of the Department of Civil Aviation regarding the redundancy of airport services posts.

These posts, the union says, “were unilaterally scrapped by the Department of Civil Aviation in 2018”.

“This resulted in the serious understaffing of the airport services, affecting the smooth operation and security of our airports.”

Pasydy said that in many cases, staff from Larnaca had to work in Paphos to cover needs due to understaffing.

The union also received a letter last week indicating there was an existing agreement different from what had been agreed with the transport minister, which “left us stunned.”