Workers of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) have dismissed reports of intentionally sidelining the domestic airline industry by threatening the sector with their industrial actions.
It follows the concerns raised by some domestic airline operators on the huge impact of the numerous industrial actions by aviation workers.
The CEO of Starbow Airlines, James Eric Antwi also lamented the brunt that domestic airlines had to bear with most industrial actions by staff providing air traffic services.
“What even bothers me is why these strike actions are always targeted at domestic airlines; this time round I think we should engage the management because we are losing huge investments,” James Eric Antwi stated.
Recent activities by the aviation workers to demand that government hands over encroached lands belonging to the GCAA, led to some disruptions to domestic flights on Saturday.
The action led to the loss of 200,000 cedis by the two domestic airline operators; Starbow Airlines and Africa World Airlines respectively.
Though the spokesperson for the GCAA workers’ union, William Amoah admits the development is unfortunate he tells Citi Business News the decision rather follows the lack of concern by management in addressing labour issues.
“When workers are not satisfied with the condition and they take action, they may not care who suffers but we in our attempt to minimize the total impact, which is why we have not extended our activities to international airlines,” he stated.
William Amoah further intimated that the decision to limit their industrial action to the local aviation sector is to reduce the total impact to be suffered by the entire country.
“We could have since we have done that before in 1997 when the whole airspace was affected. Internationally, there are rules and regulations on some of our actions so we try as much as possible not to inconvenience the larger majority of the population or the international community,” he observed.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana