A 48-hour strike by African air traffic controllers, which began yesterday, is paralyzing traffic at several West African airports, notably that of Abidjan where all commercial flights have been canceled.
The strike grounded flights in and out of West and Central Africa on Friday, causing chaos for passengers traveling to the different parts of the world including inside the continent.
“We cannot operate. All our flights are canceled,” Air Côte d’Ivoire, the Ivorian company based at Félix-Houphouët-Boigny international airport in Abidjan, confirmed to AFP.
Similarly, no flight landed or took off from Ouagadougou airport. In Bamako, almost all commercial flights have been canceled while in Dakar, five out of 17 flights have been canceled, according to airport officials.
The strike, launched by the Union of Air Traffic Controllers Unions of Asecna (USYCAA), began Friday morning at 8:00 GMT and should last until Sunday morning.
Despite the prohibition of the strike by all the courts … the Union of Air Traffic Controllers’ Unions (USYCAA) has launched a wildcat strike,” ASECNA said on Friday.
“We have already exhausted both administrative and institutional remedies in the management of this crisis, but we have in front of us trade unionists who are stubborn to do whatever they want,” ASECNA’s head of human resources, Ceubah Guelpina, told a press conference.
The USYCAA union said in a statement that its members would cease providing services to all but “sensitive” flights until their demands are satisfied.
The union is demanding better working conditions and better career plans. The Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) has 18 member states, mainly French-speaking African countries.
