Saturday’s so-called “meeting during working hours” by air traffic controllers affected operations to the extent that Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) announced a 6:00pm closure, which was later changed to 9:00pm. The number of impacted flights was not stated, only that some had been rescheduled for Sunday, when operations were said to have normalised, with only one cancellation.
The direct consequences in terms of inconveniencing passengers may not have been huge, but ensuring safety obviously remained a major concern. After all, this happened on the busiest commercial aviation day of the week at the height the tourism season.
One could argue that certain essential professions do not allow for strikes, no-shows and the like. Some might even remember how on August 5, 1981, American President Ronald Reagan, backed by a court order, fired 11,345 air traffic controllers for this reason and the responsible trade union ended up being deregistered.
Nobody is suggesting something like that could or should happen here. For starters, there would be no military alternatives to rely on as was the case in the US then.
More importantly, as crucial as their role is, these employees too have rights to labour representation in defence of their interests. Their union WICSU/PSU says they are owed increases since 2018-2020 and frustrated about “indecisive communication” on the way forward, while management says it has prepared a “suitable package” that the government-owned company can afford and is to be presented today, Monday.
Fact is that such disruptions do not send a desirable message for any destination and this one came at the worst possible time, with the dominant hospitality industry only just recovering from the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis. All parties involved need to keep that in mind.
