Federation News 60 Years IFATCA

zby HELENA SJöSTRÖm, IFATCA DEPUTY President

While the controlling of traffic at airports and en-route, had up until 1939 been very rudimentary, at least to our modern eyes, there were now almost endless resources to develop efficiency and capacity.

In 1956, Israeli Air Traffic Controller Jacob Wachtel started correspondence with contacts around the world and, after getting positive feedback, he suggested a conference in Jerusalem 1959. For various reasons, the conference had to be cancelled. One of the problems was the financial situation of some member associations.

Instead, it was the German Association, Verbandes Deutscher Flugleiter (VDF), that hosted a meeting in November 1959 in Frankfurt. The 14 countries present declared their intention to found a European Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations.

Those 14 countries were Austria, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Ireland and Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

A working group prepared a constitutional conference, that was to be held in London during the fall of 1960. Despite advanced preparations, the British Guild decided against joining the Federation, which also postponed the founding conference. It was agreed to hold the conference in Amsterdam on the 19th and 20th of October 1961.

Besides the UK, Sweden was unable to formally join as it did not have a dedicated controller association yet. When it came to discussing the name of the Federation, the initial suggestion was ‘EFATCA’. The IATA representative of suggested to replace ‘European’ by ‘International’ as it would be far more appropriate for a truly International Organisation. When the suggestion was unanimously accepted, all documents and charters had to be reprinted and the logo had to be adapted.

z Leo ”Tek” Tekstra, IFATCA's first

President

IFATCA's first president Leo ”Tek” Tekstra from the Netherlands was unanimously elected. He remained in the post until 1968. During the first Annual Conference, held in Paris in April 1962, both the UK and Sweden were voted in as new members.

In 1963, the association of the Central African Federation (briefly) became the first nonEuropean member. One year later, Canada and Uruguay became the first members from the Americas. And in 1965, New Zealand became the first Asia/Pacific country to join. By 1968, membership had doubled. In 1970, the first conference outside Europe was held in Montréal, Canada.

Sixty years after its foundation, Air Traffic Controllers all over the world have put their hard work, their endless hours, their heart and soul and sometimes their tears, into improving this thing we call Air Traffic Control. IFATCA means friendship. It means a feeling of doing something really worthwhile, a sense of accomplishment and a sense of a second family. IFATCA is you! The people who do all this work, for the bettering of flight safety.

IFATCA started with two conferences being cancelled! One could say that in the past two years, we have continued this tradition. Both Annual Conferences 2020 and 2021 had to be cancelled. While the pandemic has had a huge and detrimental impact on the aviation industry, we wonder how we would have coped if the pandemic had not come, since there was already a gigantic staff shortage in ATM.

But the pandemic did hit us and it also meant that we as IFATCA could not see each other. This also has had a profound impact on us as a Federation. The Executive Board hopes we will all be able to meet in Singapore for Conference in May 2022. Travel restrictions remain a concern and the final decision regarding Conference 2022 will be taken as the EB hopefully meets on February 4-7. y

z IFATCA's founding fathers at the constitutional conference in Amsterdam, October 1961. Note the absence of any founding mothers!