LAHORE, April 2: Air traffic controllers on Monday called off their protest after the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) assured them to redress their grievances. Dawn

“We have ended our protest after the CAA administration accepted our demands,” Pakistan Air Traffic Controllers Guild Secretary-General Afzal Shahid told .

He said CAA Director General Nadeem Yousufzai gave the assurance to a controllers delegation headed by Naeem Qureshi. He said the CAA had agreed in principle to give rating allowance, improve service structure and safety issues of the controllers.

The controllers had started observing 'go by book' on Sunday causing delay in flights. The CAA board is likely to meet on April 9 to approve recommendations in this regard.

According to a source, the CAA earns 93 per cent revenue from air navigation, landing and housing charges. “The air taffic controllers constitute the largest group (25 per cent) of CAA's officers community, but they are the most ignored and least rewarded owing to their isolation from the mainstream management,” he said.

He said the revised rating allowance recommended by the CAA committee was 35 per cent. The controllers were losing interest in job because of stress as they were forced to perform duty for more than seven hours at night which further extended to 10 hours without a break due to shortage of trained ATCs. —Staff Reporter