Lack of air traffic controllers

After “Krone” report: Tanner wants personnel sovereignty

Following the sensational report in the Kronen Zeitung newspaper about the complete failure of air traffic control at the weekend, Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner has gone on the offensive: in view of the staff shortage of air traffic controllers, she is demanding that in future she should also be responsible for the pay of soldiers. Until now, the - green-led - Civil Service Ministry under Werner Kogler has been responsible for this. 

"Personnel sovereignty belongs to the department that is responsible for it," Tanner told journalists on Tuesday: "I am happy to take full responsibility if I also have it for the issue of special contracts, whether there are any and to what extent they are possible."

Retaining staff with special contracts
The minister would like to use special contracts to encourage military air traffic controllers to stay. According to the army, their migration to the better-paying Austro Control, for example, is responsible for the fact that the Eurofighters were unable to fly last weekend, as first reported by the "Krone". According to Tanner, air traffic controllers in the civilian sector earn two and a half times as much and only have to work 32 hours a week. In the army, however, they work up to 77 hours overtime per month. 

Tanner once again emphasized that it must be ensured that "this" - i.e. the complete loss of active airspace surveillance because the few remaining air traffic controllers had to reduce their overtime - does not happen again. "I will not accept that either", a clear order to this effect had been issued to the General Staff.

Remained in the hangar last weekend: the Eurofighters.(Bild: Christian Jauschowetz)

Problems around Christmas time
Confidential information from the airbase shows just how explosive the problem in Zeltweg really is: there are likely to be further weekends around Christmas when airspace surveillance is suspended. There would be enough aircraft and pilots in Zeltweg. But there are no longer enough employees in the air operations services - especially air traffic controllers and firefighters - to keep the military airbase operational on a daily basis. Retirements and other departures have contributed to the increasing amount of overtime. The problem was known, but had been delayed for years.

At the weekend, the responsibility for this was shifted to the green-led civil service ministry, which is responsible for salaries and had failed to recognize the extent of the problem despite "countless discussions". This was rejected there. The drastic nature of the situation had never been brought up by the Ministry of Defense. On Monday evening, Kogler personally added on Ö1's "Abendjournal": "A Ministry of Defense that doesn't have the situation under control and talks its way out of it is itself a security risk."