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Dakar, Jan 2 (APS) – Air traffic controllers at the Dakar Regional Air Navigation Center announced restrictive measures in air traffic on Wednesday to demand the reduction of their workload to a “reasonably manageable level by the workforce” , informs a press release received the same day at the APS.
Air traffic controllers say they made this decision “after having alerted so much, and demonstrated so much resilience to manage the airspace of almost four million square kilometers under their responsibility with the maximum of professionalism”.
“The regional air navigation center of Dakar and the control tower of Diass airport are encountering major difficulties mainly linked to the advanced obsolescence of the technical means used for the provision of air navigation services,” explains the text.
Meeting in an Extraordinary General Assembly on December 12, air traffic controllers declared “no longer able to manage the air traffic entrusted to them in a safe, regular and orderly manner.”
These controllers are demanding the activation by the Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) of the exceptional measure plan or contingency plan.
“Failing this, we reserve the right to take measures restricting air traffic in order to reduce the workload to a level reasonably manageable by the workforce and technical means currently available,” warn air traffic controllers.
They denounce a situation “the glaring lack of staff deplored for several years and which was already the subject of demands during the September 2022 strike led by all ASECNA air traffic controllers, the problem being common to all the centers.”
“It is therefore in this context that air traffic controllers live who have on their shoulders the responsibility for guiding and ensuring the safety of the movement of all civil and military aircraft in the air and on the ground,” we read in the text.
AFD/ADL/MTN
Senegal
