Annual Report of the Executive Board to the Cairo Conference
It is not my ambition to be perfectly correct with my annual prediction of continued problems in the international air traffic control environment in the board's report to the annual conference. As a matter of fact. I would much prefer for once. to be proven wrong. However. based on the display of intransigence of various employers and their ignorance - which after conclusions of the meeting of experts on air traffic control at the International Labour Office can only be termed 'deliberate' - predictions of future problems in our profession are ridiculously easy to make with a guarantee of being right. The past twelve months have seen government employers dismiss controllers who were fighting in the name of their national controllers· organization. for the profession and their fellow controllers. They have seen controllers ·mobilized'. i.e. put under military jurisdiction and law. and military controllers being introduced into a normally civilian system as either replacement or threat of that possibility. This federation unreservedly condemns such gestures of government intimidation of air traffic controllers. they serve no purpose other than to decrease aviation safety. Controllers forced to work operationally under such additional conditions of stress. cannot possibly perform their duties with the degree of safety our profes-
sion demands. It is interesting. in a morbid way, to speculate what the findings of an impartial court of law would be should an aviation accident attributable to human error occur under such circumstances. We are convinced that blame. or at least a major portion of it, would have to be laid at the feet of the employer. the government. as the deliberate creator of this additional stress. What makes us sad. on top of the aforementioned degradation of aviation safety, the stress and aggravation to our members. is the fact that those who will suffer almost exclusively from these government-created and perpetrated situations of confrontation over inadequate air traffic control equipment. working conditions, and relationship. are the airlines and general aviation - our customers - and the passengers and users - their customers. The· government employers. wilfully disregard the conclusions of the ILO meeting of experts. agreed upon by both government and controller representatives. and the solutions contained therein. These governments are jeopardizing untold sums of money in national income and the profits of their national, and. in many cases. of international air carriers. Governments must be aware. one hopes. of the money invested in training air traffic controllers. There· are two reasons
The Executive Board (left to right): H.H. Henschler. H. Wenger. D. Oudin. A. Avgoustis and E. Bradshaw. (P. o·ooherty not present)
one can imagine for governments· irrational behaviour: 1. They realize the vast economic impact of our profession but they are not willing to accept the ensuing consequences as recognized by the ILO meeting of experts, and 2. They do not. directly. suffer the economic consequences of lost income. For both of these reasons. they wish to affirm their use of the civil service straitjacket. The impact of our profession, of our membership, on international economics cannot be overestimated. Just imagine. if you can. what even a 24 hour period in the life of this planet without civil aviation would mean. I cannot even guess at the amount of lost income to all facets of all economic endeavours - there are few. if any. groups of people who could have such impact. To be fair. there are government employers who have acted on the ILO conclusions. where the profession receives proper recognition. These. together with the airlines who tangibly support the efforts of the federation. deserve our recognition and appreciation. It is our hope that the federation may be able to also. tangibly. show our recognition. ADMINISTRATION General The Executive Board has continued the policy of reduced involvement. except for cases of benefit to IFATCA, with outside agencies and organizations. Rather. the board put the emphasis on attending regional meetings. meeting of member associations. and of standing committees. To carry out this objective, we again had the assistance of the national authorities. reluctant in some cases. of Canada. Cyprus, France and Ireland. We also had the assistance of a number of airlines to whom we wish to express our appreciation. Last year finally saw the major amendment to our constitution and bye laws completed and included in the manual. The technical and professional policy statements and papers were incorporated in the manual in a new format. It is hoped that the new layout will enable all member associations to make greater use of the information and guidance material available. The board received many requests for assistance. not all of which could be attended to in the way the board would have wished. Limits of time and money unfortunately lay boundaries to the activities of the Executive Board. A number of short notice visits were made but as always travel cost presents a problem. Many member associations are successful when requesting assistance from their governments for the provision of travel facilities to the Executive Board. Many others are regrettably hampered by the attitudes of the airlines. Executive Board· Due to the relatively late dates of IFATCA ·so. the Executive Board decided to forego the normal June Board Meeting rather than schedule it for July or August inasmuch as such dates would have been impossible. or at least very difficult. owing to the summer holiday period in the nor3