A 24-hour strike is ongoing for the air traffic controllers of the Brindisi center of the Italian Flight Assistance Company (Enav). Accusing finger pointed at the industrial plan of the national operator, which provides for the movement of radar services from Puglia to Rome in June 2024, in exchange for the creation of a hub of remote towers in the same Apulian site

"The workers of the Brindisi control center are striking today against Enav's industrial plan which provides for the gradual closure and relocation of the current services to the center of Rome". "Decisions of national scope are contested but which paradoxically, due to the law on the regulation of strikes, will almost exclusively affect the airports of Puglia", say the trade unions Fit-Cisl, Filt-Cgil, Uiltrasporti, Ugl air transport and Confsal.

"This technological innovation -they add- is still in its embryonic state and has not yet seen anything concrete, while the movement of services and part of the airspace managed from Brindisi will take place starting from June 2024. This is an unacceptable choice, which places strong doubts on the employment future of Brindisi's workers in exchange for a future that can be defined euphemistically uncertain. A choice that severely penalizes the entire South with the closure of the control towers of Lamezia Terme, Grottaglie, Brindisi, Foggia, Reggio Calabria, Comiso, Salerno, they move forward".

The workers ask to "maintain the services currently provided and to create an integrated control center, in which the hub of the remote towers can coexist. This would be an undoubted showcase for Enav, unique in the world of its kind, perfect integration of the entire operational chain of air traffic assistance, from take-off to landing through the cruise phase", argue the trade unionists.