(ANSAmed) A decree to begin the path that could put an end to what has been for Spanish air traffic controllers a true golden age, with fabulous salaries, double compared to their European colleagues.

Salaries that are 350,000 euros on average per year and which for some, thanks to the mechanisms associated with overtime work, come very close to one million euros. Today, however, after failed negotiations to renew air traffic controllers' contracts, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved a decree that transfers the responsibility of organising the work of air traffic controllers to the Infrastructure Ministry and state-run airport owner and manager AENA.

Based on the decree, proposed by Minister José Blanco and published in the Official State Gazette, the government changed the conditions in the current 5-year collective labour agreement for the sector, signed in 1999 and still in effect until today due to an extension, which included an average of 1,200 hours of work annually for each controller with an average salary of 375,000 euros. Starting today AENA will organise the controllers' work, as well as their hours and salaries, a responsibility that until now was up to the controllers themselves.

In the decree, it was stressed that the measures contained therein must be applied "urgently", due to the "serious situation in which AENA currently stands, in order to guarantee the economic and financial continuity and sustainability of an essential service such as airline transit". In recent days Blanco made the privileged conditions of air traffic controllers public, with monthly pay more than double that of their European colleagues. In Spain there are over 2,300 air traffic controllers, of which 28 earn over 700,000 euros per year; 135 earn over 600,000, and 713 earn a salary of between 360,000 and 540,000. Some earn up to 900,000 euros per year.

The decree allows the Infrastructure Ministry to sign contracts with "new suppliers" for airline navigation services, so long as they possess the required certification from a national supervisory board of an EU member state. Basically, this amounts to the liberalisation of air traffic control services, since AENA will be able to realise these services with current controllers or assign it to another business with its personnel.