Norway warns of growing flight delays as controllers strike

Norwegian air passengers are set for flight delays and potential cancellations through the weekend due to a strike by the country’s air traffic controllers after wage talks failed, Bloomberg reports.

Air traffic controllers will go on strike after two days of mediation efforts yielded no agreement on pay, the state mediator said in a website statement. The industrial action is expected to last until August 24, according to Helene W. Jensen, a spokeswoman for Avinor AS which operates most of Norway’s civil airports.

“We expect delays at both Oslo and Bergen during the afternoon, and that these delays will increase as the evening progresses,” Jensen said by phone. “And since these are two of our largest airports, we also expect this to have consequences for the rest of the country.”

Jensen declined to give an estimate for how many flights or passengers would be affected.

The employers were offering the air controllers a 4.4% increase in average annual salary, in line with the broader collective deal reached earlier this year, to 1.7 million kroner ($200,000), Anne-Kari Bratten, the chief executive officer of the employers’ association Spekter, said.

Union representative Robert Gjønnes said the demands were mainly over other conditions than pay.

State mediator Mats Ruland “found that the parties were so far apart that there was no basis for presenting a proposal,” he said in a statement.

By Vafa Guliyeva