The Tribune

VETERAN air traffic controllers were honoured at an official ceremony celebrating their contributions over the last 25 years.

The honorees and their families gathered in the ballroom at Government House to receive awards from Governor-General Sir Arthur Foulkes.

Minister of Transport and Aviation Glenys Hanna-Martin read a proclamation by Prime Minister Perry Christie commending the Bahamas Air Traffic Controllers Union (BATCU) and declaring May 26 to June 1 ‘Bahamas Air Traffic Controllers Union Recognition Week’.

“I just wanted to put that on the record that the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth has made certain assertions of fact at the highest level about the contribution of the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

“I also looked at your theme and I think this is actually an excellent theme: ‘One Sky, One Voice, One People’,” she said.

“And why I really connect with this theme is because we all know we are an archipelago and one of the things I marvel about the Bahamas, that we have such distinct communities that are separated on the south at one end and the north at the other end, but yet we have managed as a people to maintain a cohesion that is so powerful and unbreakable as one people; despite the islands all over the place, this cohesion is so powerful across the Bahamas.”

She told the controllers the role they play in terms of the cohesion in aviation is critical, as is the role Civil Aviation plays in the Bahamian economy, facilitating tourism and trade.

“People don’t think about air traffic controllers. They are in the tower, totally focused. If you’ve never been in the tower, you need to go and see these people at work. They are totally focused on what they are doing.

“So, you don’t think about them. You’re in the plane in first class or the economy class, and you’re really enjoying it, and you don’t think about air traffic controllers and understand your dependency on the work that they do or how critical it is to safety and well being of a gigantic industry worldwide.”