Controllers back on the job

Air traffic controllers who took strike action for more than a week are expected back on the job less than a day after they were dismissed for breach of contract.



A meeting has been scheduled with President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is expected back in the country later today, after attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.



The air traffic controllers received letters of dismissal from the interim director general of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority.



The Authority said their contracts were terminated because they were absent without an adequate excuse.



The controllers stayed off the job for five days, pressing for outstanding overtime payments, which the aviation minister Robeson Benn said the government could not afford.



Guyanese authorities were forced to ban night flights to ease the burden on the skeletal staff manning control towers.