Greek court rules air traffic controllers strike illegal (Roundup)

Jul 10, 2009, 12:52 GMT

Athens - A Greek court ruled on Friday that a planned 24-hour strike by air traffic controllers, which threatened to cause havoc during the busy tourist season, was illegal.

Initially, all flights to and from Greece were to have been suspended from midnight Friday until midnight Saturday, as air traffic controllers decided to shut down the country's airspace, with only emergency flights landing and taking off.

If it had proceeded, the strike would have affected hundreds of flights with many journeys between the Middle East and Europe also hit, as the aircraft pass over Greek airspace.

But with just hours before the protest was set to kick in, a court hearing in Athens supported a Greek Civil Aviation Authority injunction and deemed the strike illegal.

The eleventh-hour ruling received a sigh of relief by tourism officials, which say the strike would have brought misery to thousands of holidaymakers.

The strike would also have had a negative effect on the country's tourism industry, which is already suffering from the worldwide economic crisis.

Air traffic controllers have staged repeated strikes since the start of the year over pension reforms and salaries. Workers are demanding that extra staff be hired and that their health-care benefits be improved.

They are also up in arms over the poor quality of communications systems, which they say is so bad that songs from radio stations often interrupt conversations with pilots.

Union officials insist the main radar systems used to track aircraft also sometimes fail and has vowed to continue with protests unless the government takes appropriate measures.