~ Airport COO steps in and save the day with extra firefighters.~
AIRPORT: Firefighters at the Princess Juliana International Airport are currently on sickout on Sunday morning causing a category to drop as there are not sufficient firefighters on duty. Due to this action, certain categories of aircraft cannot land either take off this morning.
SMN News learned that the firefighters decided to take action because they were not paid their 100% bonus payment. According to information received management of PJIAE offered to pay its firefighters 35% of their bonus in a meeting held last week but the proposal was rejected.
Reliable information reaching SMN News states that the Chief Operations Officer Michel Hyman managed to recruit at least five firefighters that were off on Sunday to report to work at PJIAE to step in and avert the situation bringing the numbers up and increase the category back to category 7, thereby allowing all sizes of aircraft to take off and land.
According to information reaching SMN News as soon as operations resume to normal a meeting will be held with the disgruntled airport firefighters that are currently on sick out.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brian Mingo said the airport is back fully operational at this moment. Mingo explained that the C-shift workers comprising of 5 firefighters called in sick on Sunday morning and as such management managed to recruit 11 other certified firefighters that are working in other areas of PJIAE. Mingo said at the moment the category is back up to 7 while they have 4 firefighters on standby. The company’s CEO explained that despite the situation airport operations were not hindered.
SMN News also learned that Minister of TEATT Ludmilla de Weever was also on the grounds of the airport to try and avert the situation. It is still not clear what role the Minister played in the day to day operations of a government-owned company.
