Vida unionist Daniel Liebhart, who is a full-time air traffic controller, strongly criticizes the EU Commission's latest plans. The proposal for the Single European Sky agreement should lead to lower costs for the airlines. The employee representatives fear that cheap flight tickets will continue to be promoted.

"Instead of ensuring stable air traffic control in Europe and, for example, promoting the further training of air traffic controllers, the EU Commission relies on competition," says Liebhart. “The current crisis must be used to set the right investments and incentives. It cannot be that, in retrospect, the pilots will once again be publicly scolded for the failure of the policy and for numerous delays due to a lack of staff ”.

In the summer months of 2018 and 2019 in particular, the Europe-wide lack of pilots was clearly noticeable. Although the majority of the delays were made by the airlines themselves, the air traffic control division also made its inglorious contribution because there simply wasn't enough staff to look after the many flights. The last-mentioned problem no longer arises due to the corona pandemic, at least for the time being, but fewer flights also mean less income and thus savings pressure, which is ultimately passed on to the pilots in some places.

A positive view of the Vida union is the further greening of air traffic proposed by the EU Commission. Air traffic control should also play its part in this project, but not in the form of falling costs for the services. “The way that the Commission has recently shown is doomed to failure in advance. The commission should set a sustainable price level for air traffic control and support the goal of the Austrian federal government, a minimum price for flight tickets, with full force ”, explains Daniel Liebhart. “These would be important milestones in order to secure employment and to be able to establish ecologically acceptable air traffic and, above all, fair competition in European aviation. We therefore call on the EU Commission to take action in this direction. "

The union fears that competition among low-cost airlines could become even fiercer, which will ultimately come at the expense of workers. "We expect the Austrian federal government to actively demand sustainable financing of the critical infrastructure in aviation from the EU Commission so that more sustainability is ensured in aviation in the future," says the Vida unionist.  

The Vienna Airport Management Board is right in that aviation is a critical infrastructure. “Even when the workload is low, the running costs are incurred. Airports and air traffic control are also required during a lockdown and cannot simply lock up and leave the airspace to itself. For example, a flight with a donor organ for a life-sustaining transplant could land at Vienna Airport at any time. This incurs operating costs, even when flight operations are actually at a standstill. The bridging financing for air traffic control and airports must therefore be secured, ”emphasizes Liebhart. “Before the corona pandemic, the critical infrastructure companies in aviation were healthy companies without public subsidies and will be so again after the crisis. However, no one should be left behind in the crisis ”.