(Abidjan) A strike by air traffic controllers on Friday paralyzed several African airports, notably that of Abidjan where all commercial flights were cancelled, we learned from airport sources.
Posted yesterday at 3:24 p.m.
The strikers are demanding in particular an improvement in their working conditions and better career plans.
“No flights took off or landed today,” said a source at Abidjan airport, who wished to remain anonymous.
“We cannot operate. All our flights have been cancelled”, confirmed to AFP the communication manager of Air Côte d’Ivoire, Yacouba Fofana.
The Air France company joined in Abidjan has also confirmed the cancellation of its two flights departing from Roissy, supposed to land in the evening in the Ivorian economic capital, as well as two flights which were to leave for France.
Air France flights drain hundreds of passengers between the two countries every day.
The strike movement, launched by the Union of Air Traffic Controllers Unions of Asecna (USYCAA), began Friday morning at 8 a.m. GMT and should last 48 hours.
“general movement”
The Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (Asecna) has 18 member states, mainly French-speaking African countries.
“It’s a general movement,” a USYCAA official in Burkina Faso told AFP, saying that “minimum service is provided for military and humanitarian flights.”
Abidjan is therefore not the only airport affected by major disruptions.
No aircraft have landed or taken off from Ouagadougou airport, according to airport sources.
In Bamako, almost all commercial flights have been canceled, said an airport official wishing to remain anonymous.
A Dakar travel agency manager also reported passengers stranded in Lomé, Togo.
In Dakar, five out of 17 flights were canceled, according to an airport official, again on condition of anonymity.
And Central Africa was not spared either: in Cameroon, the national company Camair-Co indicated on Twitter that the strike led “to the cancellation of all its flights” on Friday.
“The strike continues,” warned the national union of air traffic controllers in this country.
Friday, in a press release, Asecna deplored the holding of this “wildcat strike”, despite the ban on it “by all the courts seized”.
The Senegalese authorities had “seized justice and the latter suspended the strike and requisitioned the signalmen.
Despite this requisition, the traffic controllers were not in the control tower on Friday morning and the authorities replaced them with soldiers from the air force,” explained the manager of Dakar airport.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the Ministry of Transport described this strike as “illegal”, explaining that the Ivorian justice system had suspended the notice on Thursday.
The ministry regrets that the strike intervenes while the “dynamics of dialogue is engaged”.
A first strike notice was given for August 25, but the movement was finally suspended and negotiations began.