Skopje, 5 January 2024 (MIA) - The Trade Union of Air Traffic Controllers announced a strike by closing the airspace from January 10, unless in the meantime the three directors of the national air navigation service provider M-NAV resign or are dismissed by the Government as announced after Thursday's attack on M-NAV employees.

The unionized air traffic controllers have decided on the strike action at a meeting late Thursday. The union's leader Aleksandar Tasevski said Friday that according to latest information from his colleagues, activities at M-NAV are afoot, but they expect the competent institutions to do their job.

"Following coordination activities and appeals, security measures have been provided. Early in the morning, colleagues confirmed that activities are proceeding as they should. The revolt and the stress is high and we expect the state institutions to do their job, raise awareness with the directors not to complicate the situation further," Tasevski told MIA. 

In a Facebook post earlier, he thanked the public for its support of the union's activities throughout this entire time, and particularly for the support after M-NAV air traffic controllers were attacked at work.

At the extraordinary meeting late Thursday, union members have strongly condemned the attack on their colleague. 

Several decisions and demands were made at the meeting:

-The Ministry of Interior should immediately take activities to find the participants in the entire event, including both the persons who are not employed in air traffic control, but were present in the security perimeter of the facility and the air traffic control facility itself, as well as the persons employed in air traffic control, who took part and assisted in the entire event which resulted in a physical attack on the air traffic controller. During the meeting, the Ministry of the Interior issued an official press release that four people have been detained and are being questioned by the police, after which an appropriate report will follow, as well as that a search is underway for another four people.

- Due to obvious security failures of the services in charge of securing the facility and the people employed in the air traffic control, as well as the complicity of people employed in M-NAV who assisted the entry of unauthorized persons, the Ministry of Interior has been requested to deploy security guards, seeing that this is a strategic state facility, as well as due to the fact that air traffic controllers could not continue to work under reasonable fear that at any given time someone from the outside could enter and threaten their lives, and thus the lives of the passengers on the planes served. The Ministry of Interior immediately deployed security guards to protect the facility and the employees.

- We urge the three executive directors at M-NAV, to immediately resign from their posts, primarily due to moral reasons, after the escalation of the situation in air traffic control at their fault. They have shown that they are neither capable of successfully managing M-NAV nor they are capable of protecting their employees and the facility itself against intrusion by unauthorized persons. Even though more than 11 hours have passed since the attack on our colleague, none of them found it necessary to publicly condemn the whole event, to come out with an official position about what happened in an institution that should represent the top of the security system, they have failed to offer their help to our injured colleague, or to guarantee the further safety of the employees who, despite everything, had to stay at their jobs and continue to control air traffic. They should not wait on their dismissal announced for the next session of the Government, because they have caused enough damage already. 

- If the directors still fail to demonstrate virtue to resign from their posts, we call on the Government, at the next session scheduled for 09.01.2024, to dismiss all the directors and open an urgent procedure for the election of new members of the management and the Board of Directors in a public, transparent and legally prescribed process, towards calming all tensions and enabling the normalization of all processes that are necessary for the further normal functioning of M-NAV. 

"If we are forced to carry out the strike on 10.01.2024, we ask all our fellow citizens to have understanding of our actions despite the problems they will face during their air travel, because our actions are aimed at providing and guaranteeing a safe flight to each and every one of our passengers. We have already notified all international aviation institutions as well as unions and associations of air traffic controllers from Europe about the developments and our further activities, and we expect representatives to arrive soon in further support," said Tasevski. 

The Government announced on Thursday that decisions will be made on the sitution in M-NAV at its next session on January 9. 

"At the initiative of Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski in consultation with Defense Minister Slavjanka Petrovska and Minister of Transport and Communications Blagoj Bochvarski, the government at its next session, scheduled for Jan. 9, will discuss ways to resolve the situation in the national air navigation service provider M-NAV. Proposed solutions include dismissing all managers and management board members," the Government said in a press release.

"At the same time, Prime Minister Kovachevski will call on the Public Prosecutor's Office, the State Anti-Corruption Commission, the State Audit Office, the Financial Police Office and international air traffic control bodies to conduct a complete audit of M-NAV's previous operations," the release said.

In addition, the Ministry of Interior said late Thursday that four people involved in the attack of employees of the national air navigation service provider M-NAV were called in for a police interview to be followed by appropriate measures in coordination with the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office. The press release added that search is underway for another four people in connection with the attack, noting that the MoI will ensure ongoing security measures at the M-NAV building. 

Earlier, Trade Union of Air Traffic Controllers leader Aleksandar Tasevski in a social media post said that air traffic control employees had been attacked in the M-NAV national air navigation service provider's air traffic control facility.

Tasevski wrote that several vehicles had come to the air traffic control facility. People got out, went inside, started to argue, and then attacked air traffic control employees, he said. He noted that the people were not stopped by any of the security guards on duty.

The attack happened after the union leader's press conference earlier on Thursday. He had said that twenty to thirty air traffic controllers and their assistants working for M-NAV would start resigning from their management positions in response to the latest job announcement in this institution.

He also said he had been notified Wednesday by the Department for Violent Crime at the Ministry of Interior that M-NAV directors Fahrudin Hamidi and Fasim Deari reported an email of his because of "feeling of threat to their life security" under Article 144 paragraph two of the Criminal Code.

Photo: MIA