Brazil airports in chaos after strike
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - Brazil struggled Saturday to get its air transport running again after making a deal with air traffic controllers whose strike left South American giant’s airports in chaos.
Thousands of passengers remained stranded at airports on Saturday a half-day after government ministers and unions for the controllers reached an agreement to end the hours-old walkout in an emergency meeting late Friday.
Long queues snaked outside airport halls, particularly in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, after nearly one hundred domestic and international flights were scrubbed and many more were hit by lengthy delays.
Infraero, the state airport authority, said Saturday that of the 704 scheduled flights between midnight Friday and 10:30 am Saturday, 91 flights had been cancelled and 148 were delayed more than one hour.
Brazilian carrier GOL asked its passengers not to turn up at terminals after the strike effectively closed down 49 of the country’s 67 airports, according to Infraero.
“The situation will not return to normal before three days,” Infraero head Jose Carlos Pereira told reporters as he arrived in Brasilia for an emergency meeting Saturday afternoon with Defense Secretary Waldir Pires.
He called on passengers to “be patient.”
Under the accord ending the strike, the government agreed to suspend planned transfers of workers from the airport of Brasilia, the capital, to other parts of the country; to raise salaries and to start talks on “demilitarizing” the industry.
The Brazilian military has strong control over traffic in the country’s airspace, and most air traffic controllers technically work for it.
The conflict reached a boiling point late Friday when the controllers walked off the job, forcing Infraero to cancel all takeoffs across the country of 190 million.
Pereira acknowledged the government’s response to problems in the air transport sector had been slow. He also blamed a shortage of aircraft for problems in Brazil’s air network.
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Source: www.afp.com
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