SOME €4 million is spent on average each year on overtime pay and allowances to air traffic controllers (ATC), the Department of Civil Aviation has confirmed.
Daily Phileleftheros, which broke the story yesterday, cited one example from 2009 where an ATC received around €8000 a month in overtime and allowances on top of the salary.
The paper said the lowest amount paid in overtime (again 2009 stats) to an ATC was €5,138. The highest was €100,000.
Leonidas Leonidou, director of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) said the figures cited “more or less correspond to reality”.
The problem of overtime would be resolved through additional hiring of personnel by the DCA, he said. The department recently hired 20 new ATCs, and plans to engage 20 more.
But the DCA is hamstrung by the red tape in hiring procedures, coupled to the lengthy training required before an air traffic controller is licensed.
It can take up to three-and-a-half years from the time the DCA puts in a request for extra staff until such personnel man the desks.
That’s how long it took the DCA to hire the 20 new ATCs. Around six of these will be ready to go to work as of this week; the rest over the next couple of months.
In addition to these 20 ATCs, the DCA plans to hire another 20 and has filed a request with the Finance Ministry to approve the funds.
There are currently 70 air traffic controllers working with the DCA.
Leonidou said the addition of new staff would alleviate, or hopefully eradicate, the problem of overtime pay.
“At the end of the day, the salaries of 110 employees could be less costly than under the current system with the overtime pay for the 70 employees,” Leonidou told the Mail.
It appears the hitch is not chiefly a lack of staff, but rather the roster system, which Leonidou described as outdated and “inelastic”.
At present, the Mail has learned, ATCs work 8-hour or 13-hour shifts, and the rota is virtually unchanged whether during peak traffic or “slower” periods.
The DCA, it is understood, wants to streamline the system so as to maximise efficiency, thereby getting rid of the need for overtime.
Air traffic controllers are unionised and, in addition to being members of the blanket civil servants union PASYDY they have also set up their own separate trade union.
Any change to current practices would have to be discussed and agreed by the Joint Personnel Committee.
Overtime pay in a number of government departments – the Ports Authority being a notorious example – is considered a major drain on state finances as the government looks to public sector pay cuts in a bid to slash the deficit.
