Aviation strike causes domestic airlines to lose GHC200k

Domestic airline operators are reeling from a strike action by air traffic controllers at the Kotoka International Airport.

On Saturday July 9, Domestic flights were grounded following the strike action by civil aviation workers over the sale of lands belonging to the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority by government.

The strike that was supposed to have happened from Friday was suspended due to a plea by management of the authority for a final meeting to dissuade the workers from embarking on the strike action. But clearly the workers were not convinced by the authority’s attempt to assure them that their demands will be met.

According to the staff, the situation is making it difficult for the Civil Aviation Authority to expand its operations and logistics in order to render quality services to stakeholders in the aviation industry.

Checks on Saturday revealed that scores of passengers had been left stranded as staff of GCAA in charge of safety on the runway, were on strike.

Clueless about what was going on, some of the passengers had no choice than to return home, while others demanded to get an explanation to what was going on.

The CEO of Starbow, James Eric Antwi, lamented about the impact of the strike action in an interview with Accra based Citi FM. According to him, he recorded losses of almost GHC150,000 due to the strike action.

Antwi said: "We cancelled three flights. These included flights to Takoradi and Kumasi. Well, if you talk in terms of money, it will cost between GHC120,000 to GHC150,000... so in terms of money and inconveniences, it's been very bad."

Ground Operations Manager at Africa World Airlines (AWA), Rainer Yeboah also said they had to refund money to passengers they could not fly.

"We had to refund monies to some passengers. Some customers were asking why we couldn't fly them to their respective destinations, which of course was also beyond our control," Ms Yeboah said.

"I cannot give you the actual figures but we are talking of costs in the region of GHC50,000," she concluded.

Work resumed later in the afternoon after the Chief-of-Staff Julius Debrah intervened.t