similar study<\/a> Airlines for Europe published in June 2016.\r\n\r\nThe A4E study was undertaken by PwC and examined the impact of ATC strikes, based on 167 strike days between 2010 and 2015. Its headline was that strikes had cost up to \u20ac9.5 billion. The study predicted that, unless the situation is rectified, the cost of strikes in 2015-2020 would be roughly equivalent to the GDP of Malta.\r\n\r\nThe aim, of course, was to foster political antipathy for ATC strikes and the controllers. The study pointedly noted that there are only 15,000 air traffic controllers and not less than 2,000,000 stranded passengers.\r\n\r\nThe controllers had two options: the high or the low road. For six months it looked like it might be the high road, or at least the studied-and-silent-disdain road. No, the silence was just them getting their ducks in a row. There is a subsidiary question of why the unions were not poised to respond, study in hand, but half a year gave their press conference clear blue sky to work with, something controllers appreciate.\r\n\r\nSo, given six month to plan and launch their counter offensive, what was the best shot the controllers had in their locker?\r\n\r\nATCEUC President Volker Dick came out swinging at one of A4E\u2019s most prominent members, Ryanair: \u201cIt is a pity that inside A4E a specific low fares airline boss is attempting to destroy workers\u2019 rights.\u201d This aggressive tone was maintained throughout the press conference launching their counter-study, during which ATCEUC and ETF claimed that A4E had used \u201cdeceitful figures\u201d, and that supporting their campaign to reduce the impact of ATC strikes was \u201cna\u00efve and short-sighted\u201d.\r\n\r\nSo, there is the charge: na\u00efve and short-sighted. How do the ATCEUC and ETF stack up on their self-proclaimed score card?\r\n\r\nThe ATC coalition suggests that the report may be twisted by bias: \u201cThe airline lobby hired their own audit company to fabricate a study that would suit their needs\u201d. Welcome to the real world lads. \u201cFabricate\u201d is strong; finding the results they were looking for is par for the course. They were hardly likely to publish results that did not do that were they? Na\u00efve? Tick.\r\n\r\nSo, what about short-sightedness? Here the ATC coalition boys excelled themselves. This is industrial strength short-sightedness.\r\n\r\nIn a masterclass of blame shifting, The ATCEUC and ETF attempt to point the finger for the disruptions elsewhere, and unsurprisingly it lands on airlines. Citing Eurocontrol data, the case is made that the largest cause of delays is \u2018Airline delay\u2019 which comprises 51% of primarily delay in the same period studied by PwC.\r\n\r\nTo argue that what you are doing is not wrong because someone else is doing it worse, whilst maintaining a straight face, takes Trumpian measures of chutzpah. It seems more like the response of a five year old than an international trade union craving respect.\r\n\r\nSo there you have it. Rather than responding to A4E\u2019s report by conducting an empirical study to prove their innocence \u2013 perhaps an impossible task \u2013 or taking the high road by offering to work with the Commission to find ways to not disrupt innocent passengers flying over a country while exercising their right to strike \u2013 a fundamental one at that \u2013 the ATCEUC and ETF instead set the route planner to \u2018low road\u2019 and produced what is little more than an opinion piece.\r\n\r\nIt is good to have opinions, as all our readers will doubtlessly attest, but when you do, it is even better that your opinions do not fall foul of the standard you have set up as necessary. That is not a na\u00efve thing to say, but the reverse is surely short-sighted.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The war of words over European ATC strikes and their impact has gone up a gear. As with any war, truth is the first casualty. The winners, on the other hand are the consultants paid handsomely to do studies, the final results of which, surprise! always seem to accord with the views of the people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,13,15,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-navigation-service-providers","category-air-traffic-management","category-airlines","category-airports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}