Air traffic back to normal after Romanian controllers’ strike is suspended

The strike of the Romanian air traffic controllers has been suspended and air traffic is set to get back to normal, the Transport Ministry announced, quoted by News.ro. The air traffic controllers went on strike the morning of May 30 over the failure to conclude a new collective labor agreement (CCM). The Transport minister Răzvan Cuc said he had a talk with the president of the Air Traffic Services Union ATSR and a convention was being drafted and the strike suspended. This is however temporary and if the new negotiations fail, the strike can restart at any point, said Gabriel Tudorache, the president of ATSR, quoted by Mediafax. The flights due to land and take off from Bucharest's Henri Coandă Airport in Otopeni after 09:00 AM when the strike started, had delays throughout Tuesday, May 30, said Valentin Iordache, the spokesperson of the Bucharest National Airports Company (CNAB). The delays were of up to 3 hours. Six flights of low-cost carrier Ryanair were canceled the same day, without any connection to the strike. The flights at airports throughout the country, including Cluj-Napoca and Sibiu, have also been impacted by the strike. Some 150 landings and 150 takeoffs take place daily at the Otopeni airport, the largest in the country. Of all the scheduled flights, 33% need to be ensured, according to the law, even in the event of a strike. Besides them, flights that take place include those of presidents, prime ministers and ministers, military flights, humanitarian ones, and the search and rescue operation ones. “Normally, during a summer day, some 3,000 planes can be directed in 24 hours in the Romanian air space. This includes overflights, takeoffs and landings,” Alecu Florin Diaconu, the spokesperson of the ATSR, told News.ro. Air traffic controllers in Romania go on strike on Tuesday morning editor@romania-insider.com