Closure Of Manley Airport Averted As Jamaica Air Traffic Controllers Call Off Protest

KINGSTON, Jamaica CMC – Air traffic controllers who took protest action on Friday to press of an improved wage package, returned to work late Saturday, averting the closure of the Norman Manley International Airport.

The airport was scheduled to close at 9pm (local time) on Saturday but the air traffic controllers who had defied a back to work order from the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT), relented and returned to work at 11pm.

The workers had been threatened with legal action when they failed to obey the order.

Meanwhile the opposition Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) spokesman on Transport, Mike Henry, has urged the  Government to address the issues that threatened to disrupt air traffic control service.

He noted  that failure to address issues of  safety which affect air traffic controllers, amounts to a “gross dereliction of  responsibilities”.

Late Saturday, in anticipation of the closure of the airspace, Caribbean Airlines said four flights out of the island would be cancelled due to the protest action.

The airline informed passengers that flights from Toronto to the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston; from Kingston to the Fort Lauderdale Airport; from The Fort Lauderdale Airport to the Sangster

International Airport in Montego Bay, St James and from the JFK Airport in New York to Kingston were  cancelled.