With the causes of the blackout on January 4 still unknown, it emerges that the government did not implement projects for installing a state-of-the-art communication system for airports, worth €4.7 million, despite signing a contract in 2019 under the SYRIZA government, according to MEGA.
Specifically, in 2019, when Christos Spirtzis was Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, a contract was signed for the procurement and installation of a Voice Communication and Recording System (VCRS). However, the contract was never executed, and experts say the blackout could have been avoided.
On the day of the blackout, airplanes were on collision courses with just five minutes to impact, a time that in summer would drop to one minute, according to News 247 and Olga Toki, Vice President of the Air Traffic Controllers’ Association.
More than 31,500 minutes of delays were recorded at the country’s airports on the Sunday of the blackout, and at “Eleftherios Venizelos” airport alone there were 105 cancellations.
Greece was also condemned by the EU in 2024 for failing to comply with a European directive on the installation of communication systems for information exchange between aircraft and air traffic controllers (Data Link Services), according to News 247.
So far, the contract has still not been signed, putting the country at risk of new blackouts for at least the next three years.
“From ‘I will install the system’ to it actually working, it takes three years. Specifically, Day 1 is the day the contracts are signed. Then, the systems must be built, studies conducted, installations completed, tests carried out, parallel testing done, and personnel trained,” Olga Toki told News 247.
Source: in.gr, News 247
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