On Friday September 23, 2022 at 8 a.m., the Union of Air Traffic Controllers Unions of ASECNA (USYCAA) launched a strike movement which paralyzed several airports in West and Central Africa, forcing the cancellation of almost all flights.
On July 25, a strike was narrowly avoided thanks in particular to negotiations between the organization and the leaders of the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (Asecna). However, if these negotiations did indeed take place, the demands raised by the USYCAA were not satisfied by the ASECNA authorities, which rekindled the discontent of the union. “We negotiated on August 29 and 30. But we were not successful in terms of motivation, whether it be the increase in the control bonus, the career plan for air traffic controllers, the reduction of the lack of staff. On all this, Asecna did not give satisfaction”, explains François Paul Gomis, its general secretary.
Faced with this inability to reach an agreement, the members of the USYCAA carried out their threat and launched a 48-hour “wildcat strike” on Friday September 23, supposed to last until Sunday September 25. This strike has thus caused disruptions in the airports of all the member states of Asecna, which has 18 countries, mainly in West Africa.
This strike was held despite the prohibition of all the courts seized for this purpose by the strikers. At Félix Houphouet Boigny International Airport in Abidjan, “No flight took off or landed today (Friday, September 23)” said a source at the airport.
In Bamako, Ouagadougou, Lomé and Yaoundé, the observation is the same and unequivocal; almost all commercial flights have been canceled, except for Dakar airport, where the Senegalese authorities have “seized justice and the latter suspended the strike and requisitioned the signalmen. Despite this requisition, the signalmen were not in the control tower on Friday morning and the authorities replaced them with soldiers from the air force”, explained the person in charge of Dakar airport.
The strike was “assiduously followed” in 17 countries, with 39 control towers out of service, except for “the flights of heads of state and government, military flights, medical evacuations, flights of a purely humanitarian nature, including search and rescue operations” according to a member of the USYCAA.
However, it was suspended on Saturday noon, 10 p.m. after its launch by the trade union, which assured AFP that it had obtained guarantees on its claims.
Air traffic controllers therefore resumed service on Saturday evening (September 24) at the various airports concerned, such as Félix Houphouët-Boigny international airport and Cotonou international airport, but in certain countries such as Burkina Faso, the resumption n was not immediately effective due to administrative sanctions against the unions, according to ASECNA.
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