On Tuesday, at Charleroi airport, the staff of the security company Security Masters will continue the strike. This makes it very chaotic again. CEO Philppe Verdonck fears airlines will cancel their flights from Charleroi in the coming days.
Employees of Security Masters, the company in charge of passenger screening, showed up at their workplace on Tuesday morning – just like Monday – but then reported to their manager that they would not go to work and return home. This is confirmed by the union representative, who denies that there are blocks.
The company of the Protection Unit, also active at the airport, will once again try to take on the roles of Security Master. On Monday, however, it lacked sufficient staff to handle the influx of passengers. This led to chaos at the airport: travelers did not board their planes and after 16 hours the airport was even completely closed to all departing passengers.
The strike by security personnel has already led to chaos on Monday.
Spanning in the terminal
The atmosphere is reportedly tense on Tuesday morning in the terminal, where there are numerous passengers. Some passengers reportedly attempted to vault the entrance gates around 5am, while others attempted to force the gates. Just like Monday, the police are on the scene trying to keep the situation under control and have already sent reinforcements to the scene.
TUI Fly had its three scheduled flights for Tuesday to Oujda, Palma de Mallorca and Rabat diverted to Brussels airport. The passengers involved were contacted by text message. TUI Fly asks them to go directly to Brussels airport at the originally scheduled time. There are no replacement buses from Charleroi to Brussels. Return flights to Belgium land as planned at Charleroi Airport.
Unions protest against a management plan to assign passenger security checks to two operators instead of one. Security Masters staff fear this could weaken wages and working conditions. Due to the lack of response from the management of BSCA Security, the staff decided to continue the actions. The trade unions also decided to contact the competent regional minister, Adrien Dolimont (MR) directly.
Passengers once again have to queue for a long time and risk missing their flight.
Photo: BELGA
Crisis meeting planned
Philippe Verdonck, CEO of Charleroi Airport, fears that airlines will cancel their flights from Charleroi in the coming days due to the strike. He said it on Tuesday The morning on Radio 1. According to Verdonck, a crisis meeting is scheduled for Tuesday morning.
‘Tui has already decided to start most of his flights from Brussels. We are in discussions with other airlines such as Ryanair to see what their plans might be for the next few days. Some of them may cancel all flights in the next few days. ‘
“I was hoping the talks might have motivated last night, but it doesn’t,” says Verdonck. ‘I talked to the unions and they say’ we don’t move ‘. They keep insisting that they will lose their jobs. I’ve been looking for someone from the union to explain it to the passengers since early this morning, but they’re not there. We are powerless right now. (…) I cannot accept that my staff and passengers are victims of these discussions, ‘says Verdonck.
