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The war of words over European ATC strikes and their impact has gone up a gear. As with any war, truth is the first casualty. The winners, on the other hand are the consultants paid handsomely to do studies, the final results of which, surprise! always seem to accord with the views of the people that commission them.
At a joint press conference in March the European Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination and the European Transport Workers’ Federation – the two principal air traffic controllers’ unions in Europe – released their study on the reasons behind flight delays. It was a response to a similar study Airlines for Europe published in June 2016.
The A4E study was undertaken by PwC and examined the impact of ATC strikes, based on 167 strike days between 2010 and 2015. Its headline was that strikes had cost up to €9.5 billion. The study predicted that, unless the situation is rectified, the cost of strikes in 2015-2020 would be roughly equivalent to the GDP of Malta.
The aim, of course, was to foster political antipathy for ATC strikes and the controllers. The study pointedly noted that there are only 15,000 air traffic controllers and not less than 2,000,000 stranded passengers.
The controllers had two options: the high or the low road. For six months it looked like it might be the high road, or at least the studied-and-silent-disdain road. No, the silence was just them getting their ducks in a row. There is a subsidiary question of why the unions were not poised to respond, study in hand, but half a year gave their press conference clear blue sky to work with, something controllers appreciate.
So, given six month to plan and launch their counter offensive, what was the best shot the controllers had in their locker?
ATCEUC President Volker Dick came out swinging at one of A4E’s most prominent members, Ryanair: “It is a pity that inside A4E a specific low fares airline boss is attempting to destroy workers’ rights.” This aggressive tone was maintained throughout the press conference launching their counter-study, during which ATCEUC and ETF claimed that A4E had used “deceitful figures”, and that supporting their campaign to reduce the impact of ATC strikes was “naïve and short-sighted”.
So, there is the charge: naïve and short-sighted. How do the ATCEUC and ETF stack up on their self-proclaimed score card?
The ATC coalition suggests that the report may be twisted by bias: “The airline lobby hired their own audit company to fabricate a study that would suit their needs”. Welcome to the real world lads. “Fabricate” is strong; finding the results they were looking for is par for the course. They were hardly likely to publish results that did not do that were they? Naïve? Tick.
So, what about short-sightedness? Here the ATC coalition boys excelled themselves. This is industrial strength short-sightedness.
In a masterclass of blame shifting, The ATCEUC and ETF attempt to point the finger for the disruptions elsewhere, and unsurprisingly it lands on airlines. Citing Eurocontrol data, the case is made that the largest cause of delays is ‘Airline delay’ which comprises 51% of primarily delay in the same period studied by PwC.
To argue that what you are doing is not wrong because someone else is doing it worse, whilst maintaining a straight face, takes Trumpian measures of chutzpah. It seems more like the response of a five year old than an international trade union craving respect.
So there you have it. Rather than responding to A4E’s report by conducting an empirical study to prove their innocence – perhaps an impossible task – or taking the high road by offering to work with the Commission to find ways to not disrupt innocent passengers flying over a country while exercising their right to strike – a fundamental one at that – the ATCEUC and ETF instead set the route planner to ‘low road’ and produced what is little more than an opinion piece.
It is good to have opinions, as all our readers will doubtlessly attest, but when you do, it is even better that your opinions do not fall foul of the standard you have set up as necessary. That is not a naïve thing to say, but the reverse is surely short-sighted.
