7 Moncton air traffic controllers to keep jobs after Nav Canada reverses decision
Nav Canada said last December it was laying off 180 staff across Canada
Seven air traffic controllers in Moncton, N.B., will get to keep their jobs after Nav Canada reversed its decision from last year to lay them off as part of sweeping cuts across the country.
In a news release Friday, Nav Canada announced that 41 air traffic controllers across the country it had planned to lay off will be kept on the job.
In an email, spokesperson Rebecca Hickey confirmed seven of those are Moncton staff.
The other 34 air traffic controllers who will be kept on are located in Gander, N.L., Montreal and Edmonton.
The company originally announced last December that 180 positions across Canada would be "declared surplus," on top of the elimination of about 900 jobs, or 17.5 per cent of its workforce since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday, Nav Canada said the 41 jobs were being kept to "ensure it has appropriate staffing to support the aviation industry recovery."
"We are proactively taking this action to support our customers as they shift their focus to recovery," Ray Bohn, Nav Canada's president and CEO, said in the release.
"Nav Canada remains ready and able to ensure the continued safety of Canada's airspace as demand for air navigation services grows."