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Marina Nikolova

Strikes the dispatchers in the peak days of summer season made the passengers quite angry, causing huge delays and financial losses for carriers. On the occasion of the new 24-hour strike, which dispatchers had announced a week ago but was rejected by the prosecution as illegal, grreporter.info spoke with the Secretary General of the Union of the air traffic controllers in Greece Yannis Kourmoulakis about the requests of the dispatchers. The organization of the airport in Greece is not at the necessary level to merge with the services of the other three countries - Italy, Cyprus and Malta which are included in a joint program with Greece for the control of a future unified airspace, which was offered by the European Union, he said. In an interview he gave, it becomes clear that the European Union would penalize states for the delay of flights since the beginning of 2012 with fines for each delay of the aircrafts which remain on the flight strip longer than expected, which fine would be in the amount of 1200 dollars per minute.

Mr. Kourmoulakis, what are the requests of your union in relation to?

Air transport in general in Greece belong to Eurocontrol, which service takes care of the organization of air transport in Europe. The European Commission Eurocontrol may propose some rules which in the beginning were directives, and subsequently they took the form of regulations. In 2004 was issued a book of regulations for flexibility, speed and economics of air transport. We are now in a period of adjustment to the results of this ordinances, because in terms of structure and system we are very much laying behind in comparison with the other countries from the European Union. It is very difficult to change the attitudes and organization. If you start to build a house and you set the foundation wrongfully, then the house will not last - and our situation is the same. We in Greece do not have the courage to change. We have a hut and in order to build a building, we should destroy it. But in Greece we think to repair a bit our hut to make the roof, to put a beam or two. It doesn’t work like that. The same happens to the health sector because the government feared the political price. It fears the structural changes because there you always need to sacrifice something – it is either the personnel or some financial gain, and there it has difficulty to make changes.

We have to change many things right now - trying to be adapt, we are cooperating with four countries - Greece, Italy, Malta and Cyprus. We - these four countries, received a directive from the EU to create a unified airspace that will be managed by common administrative center. This means that we will have common training, same equipment, same procedures, same conditions of security and equal conditions of payment. Imagine that we have four small schools in one area which we have to merge and in them work 24 teachers. But if they merge they can work with only 15 teachers and thus we will make savings, we will become faster and will have the opportunity for enhanced security. The parameters that we are interested in are speed, security and economy.

In late 2011 and early 2012 we will enter the initial stage of this procedure when we will need to initiate these services and problems will emerge - reduction of personnel, tension will be created, because no one knows how the dialogue will go, because all this work is done to reduce the cost of air transport. We are currently in negotiations with the Ministry of Transport, but also with other countries because we have not so far ahead with the organization, as are Italy and Malta and partly Cyprus. At one point, a unified governing body will be created, which will have staff from all four countries and will make decisions, allocate duties. With this association of the four countries, my office will have to come closer to the way operation in those countries in order for the mergers to go smoothly. We have a lot of weaknesses in our organization and it is harder for us to adapt, we are having problems. In the summer we made several protest - one of which on July 24^th and 25^th, which was on Saturday and Sunday and then there were very long delays of the airplanes. This week we will have a meeting with the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Mr Spyros Vouyas and we will see what happens. We are expecting a bill under which the organization will change.

What are the first changes that have to make in the organization?

Until now, one office - the Office for Civil Aviation, performs many services in order to get the final product. I will give a simple example – in order to bring you the finished coffee – one person supplies the coffee, other one makes it and a third person serves it to you - all these people cost some money. Currently their price is out of control, i.e. the Office does not know how much costs the person who makes coffee. The European Union wants to know what are the factors that determine the price for the flight of aircraft over Greece. For example, if an aircraft departs from Sofia to Cyprus and is flying over Greece, it pays Greece a certain amount for each mile traveled, which is currently far out of control. EU wants to know what services are available, what is their price and finally why do you want to be paid for example 30 euros per mile?! So now we have to make an estimation of the services and to find out if there is an additional cost when setting the final amount. The first thing they want to do is to find out what the prices are, how much is paid for what in order to make statements and then save, but always one country can be more expensive than another one.

Since when have you started with the protests and what was the initial cause?

Requests are always financial. Our main demand is to not belong to the state sector and as it is abroad to be created an organization, a company that will manage the fees of flights by an administrator who will be state employee. We are talking about a company that will have only one shareholder - the state, but we will not fall under the state accounts because there huge delays and restrictions. Currently, to get a cup from the State I must invite tenders. And then wait for two years to deliver the cup and ultimately it is not worth buying it because you don’t need it any longer. We are, however, talking about equipment – about radars, about frequencies which technologies are developing and then in two or three years of use are already old. Money coming from Europe and from the fees for flights should go for investments in this area - to improve the standard of services, for the security, for speeding up traffic by reducing delays.

When will the Ministry sign the agreement for cooperation between these four countries?

On 31.12.2011 Greece will have to say whether it will participate in this program.

It seems to me that you are not sure whether you will participate. You as the dispatchers union, do you agree with this contract?

As an idea it is good, but we are far behind with the organization and we do not know what will happen with the issues of employment, wages, human resources, recruitment, training. These issues have not yet been discussed. We do not have enough people with whom to participate in this program. Italians for example participate in this program with eight subcommittees, involving 80 people. In Greece, in these committees on a permanent position are employed 7-8 people. We do not participate fully, decisions are taken which we are not prepared to discuss. If we know early what he agenda will be we might be able to prepare - to take the opinion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defence, the Office for Civil Aviation, the unions - if one has not gone through this to ask them for their opinion on a given proposal one can not fully participate in the dialogue. We do not have any support neither in terms of legal advice nor in terms of finances, nor we have cooperation between the ministries. Because in our work are involved three ministries, and until recently, the Ministry of Defence refused to attend meetings. The question of the organization has major consequences for the issue of security. The more things you can predict, the greater is the security. This cooperation can help us get organized, which will be good for us because it will speed up the reforms.

Will this affect the prices of flights?

We live in capitalism. Around the year 2000 the EU Commissioner for Transport and Energy Loyola de Palacio went to America and saw that the price of air transport services was 50% lower than in Europe. The reason is that Americans have one service - and the same rules that apply both in Denver and in Sinsinatai, Ohio, Tennessee. And when she returned to Europe, she said we would do the same. Through the organization the price of services will decrease and following the logic we should have a reduction in the cost of transport. But because we live in capitalism, with the price reduction it does not mean that the selling price of the product will also drop. In capitalism, the goal is profit. This is where the state should intervene and set for the companies a certain percentage of profit on top of the cost of production. In Greece there is no price control. These rules should fix problems of this type.

How far have your negotiations with the Ministry of Transport reached?

The ministry does not at all want to discuss our exit from the public sector. Because our service is profitable - I mean, we're not at a loss as is OSE, for example. There is a bill that seemingly meets the criteria set for the organization, which the EU requires. Although this bill was introduced for debates in Parliament, then was sent back because the strike of the carriers started, now more urgent is the question about the State Railways and I hope that in the moment when the subject of the railways is completed, we will come at a day line. This law will reorganize our service, but everything depends on political developments. We have elections, no one knows what will happen, where parliamentary elections will be announced after this or even if the Minister of Transport changes, we will get back again.

Why did you announce a strike last week after you are aware of the situation and yet dialogue with the ministry has started?

After the strike we had on July 24^th and 25^th, then we spoke with the Minister of Finance, the Vice President of the Government and then we were told that they will begin to discuss our requests, but two months and a half have passed since then and there was no development of our case. So we decided to announce a 24-hour strike to remind politicians that we exist and we need to talk. This is an attempt to speed up procedures, because "if the child does not cry out – it will not eat". There is still a long way to go, until decisions are made. They are related to the organization, to finance. Some of the allowances we were taking were cut down, but we are paid our salaries from the European Union. Greek state pays us, but then accounts for it to Eurocontrol about how much money it has spent on air transport which are refunded. The fees for a plane to fly over the sky bring some profit - for example, for an airplane to fly over Bulgaria  it only pays 25 euros per mile, over Greece – it pays 45 euros per mile, over Italy is 75 euros, over Turkey - 39 euros. It is associated with the cost of air transport in each country. If a salary in Greece is 10 000 euros and in Bulgaria – 3000 euros, then the price for Bulgaria is definitely lower. Greece reports for its costs and provides them to the European Union and thuy then calculate how many planes have passed through Greece, how many have passed through Bulgaria, divides the amount and obtains the price per unit and subsequently pays the amount to that country. Everything comes from the EU - salaries, pensions and allowances. After signing the memorandum with the triple, Minister of Finance said that our allowances will decrease by 20% and our allowances for Christmas Easter and holidays were cut. Our question is why are they cutting money, that do not come from the state and now we are negotiating on how to stop this procedure, because the state loses as well from the fact that we are being taxed by 40%.