FAB CE will focus on streaming projects to give stakeholders more time to move further and faster on activities such as common procurement and airspace consolidation, said Jan Klas, chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ANS CR in his opening remarks to the Prague FAB CE Social Dialogue meeting in December.
The meeting brought together representatives of FAB CE Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) management and staff from across the FAB CE community. Priority issues discussed were the Common Charging Zone (CCZ) and the overall performance of FAB CE. In terms of the CCZ, activities were at a very early stage, said Jan Klas, and a common approach still needed to be agreed. But ANSP CEOs did agree that the CCZ was not an end in itself but could be prerequisite to more substantial airspace consolidation. Social partners would be asked to play an active role in the process - via their trade unions or professional organisations - after the basic concepts had been developed.
In terms of performance FAB CE is one of Europe’s best performing FABs. A common position on RP3 has been synchronised within the CANSO community in response to the concept of minimum service level requirements. The Inter-FAB workshop on performance - taking place in Sofia on 31 January-1 February 2018 - will discuss how performance targets should be changed to be more realistic.
Social partners wanted to improve the level of communication between ANSP employers and employees. Matej Eljon, FAB CE Programme Manager and director of FAB CE Aviation Ltd, said the FAB CE social dialogue meetings could only discuss FAB CE issues related to regional operations - technology, finance, safety, capacity. He then gave a progress report on the various programmes underway and the outcome of recent inter-FAB meetings.
The EASA proposal of regulation of duty time and right of strike was then discussed and presentations were given on duty time and the right of strike in Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Croatia. The results of a study into working conditions among ANSP employees undertaken by consultants CCL would be discussed at the next meeting.