The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMIAN air traffic controllers have been “catching hell” over system upgrades that were implemented during the weekend, their union president has asserted.

Hinsey McKenzie, the Bahamas Air Traffic Controllers Union’s (BATCU) president told Tribune Business his members have requested delays to some aspects of the roll-out to ensure they avoid becoming overwhelmed by the changes.

He said: “The controllers have been catching hell. They have installed a new system. The system isn’t up to standard as yet because there’s a lot of kinks they have to clean out or fix. The workers aren’t comfortable with this system yet. It’s going to take a while to get used to it.

“Some features have changed. It’s an upgrade to the system, but it’s just that some things are not work- ing how they are supposed to work with flight planning. It’s a flight plan-based system.

“It’s a whole bunch of issues, so it isn’t simple. It’s a hard task for people to deal with, so that’s why we asked management to either put aircraft in the hole for us or delay some things so we wouldn’t be overwhelmed with the work.”

Mr McKenzie said it will take a few weeks for the air traffic controllers to get used to the new system, but technicians are on-site to correct any issues that arise.

He added: “It can take another couple of weeks before we get up to speed and get used to all these things. But we have the technicians in place and we are trying to see what the issues are as we go along and correct them.

“We are just trying to get things done and keep it safe. We aren’t trying to rush into it because we need safety first. It can take a while, we know, because the last time we implemented a new system it took a while to get up to speed. So it’ll take us maybe a couple of weeks before we get everything ironed out with this system and get a better service to the airlines.”

As for industrial agreement negotiations, Mr McKenzie said there are still a few outstanding issues and it will take a while to negotiate the final agreement.

He added: “Some things are still outstanding, but we do not have a problem with it because we know it takes some time to try and rectify some of the issues we have with the industrial agreement.”