The arbitration award to set the economic conditions of air traffic controllers of liberalized towers, including the Lanzarote airport, includes a 2% increase from January 1, 2025 in salary items and incorporates tower and insularity bonuses.
The decision to go to arbitration in the person of Santos Miguel Ruesga, was agreed by the unions USCA and CCOO and by the Association of Civil Air Traffic Providers Liberalized (APCTA) - composed of Saerco and Skyway.
All of them make up the negotiating committee of the IV Collective Agreement of private civil air traffic companies subject to concession regime, ended a strike that lasted for several months and mainly affected the Canary Islands.
Economic improvements
The arbitration award of July 29, which aims to resolve the discrepancies arising within the negotiating committee of the agreement regarding the economic conditions of the affected personnel for the period 2023-2026, establishes the following:
Retroactively, from January 1, 2023, a consolidable increase of 4 will be applied to all salary items contained in Annex I of the agreement and 5% to those corresponding to Annex II.
Retroactively, from January 1, 2024, a consolidable increase of 2% will be applied to all salary items contained in Annex I and 3% to those in Annex II.
In addition, from January 1, 2025, a consolidable increase of 2% will be applied to all salary items contained in Annex II of the collective agreement, in its versions updated to December 31, 2024.
Tower and Insularity Bonuses
From January 1, 2025, a new job position supplement, called tower bonus, will be incorporated into the remuneration structure, consolidable for all purposes. This bonus will aim to recognize the responsibilities of the controllers assigned to each of the towers in the liberalized sector and ranges between 1,300 and 7,000 euros.
It will be distributed in 14 installments corresponding to the 12 monthly payments plus the two extra payments.
Also, from January 1, 2025, the insularity bonus will be incorporated, which aims to compensate for the inconveniences derived from residence in island territories such as the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, as well as in Spanish extra-peninsular territories.
This bonus, of 2,000 euros per year, will be distributed in 14 installments corresponding to the 12 monthly payments plus the two extra payments.
From January 1, 2026, an increase of 2% will be applied to all salary items contained in Annex II of the collective agreement.
Minimize the risk of low bids
The arbitrator advised the parties to agree so that the disbursement of the amounts involved for 2023 and 2024 can be carried out from August of this year, and if not, on the temporal sequence for the disbursement of the amounts due will be paid before the end of the current year.
The arbitrator points out that greater homogeneity favors the maintenance of the purchasing power of the sector's employees, while introducing competitive transparency in the tender processes, avoiding or minimizing the risk of low bids.
In addition, it indicates that the remuneration of workers should not be used as the exclusive solution to improve or restore the economic and financial situation of companies, although it recognizes that the margin of maneuver that concessioned companies have, from the revenue side, is relatively small.