The owner of Oro Navigacijos is open about what was happening in the company: the almost unfortunate tragedy was a turning point

– Since April of this year, you are temporarily the Managing Director of SE Oro Navigacija, and officially assumed the management at the beginning of September. You have replaced Mindaugas Gusti, who leaves office by mutual agreement. Tell us, in what condition did you find the company in mid-April then?

– The situation was not enviable due to the enormous fragmentation of the workforce. At that time, the psychological climate of the company was extremely low.

I saw tired people. Both air traffic controllers and our engineering staff, and our company is one in which there is no room for any possibility of error.

Another thing was that the company was very ambitious on a very high efficiency path, which meant that employees had to do double, triple work and the company was able to access the situation that had occurred over Lake Constance in Switzerland when two planes. But the essential thing, which is often forgotten, was that this situation was caused by the company’s own administration, through excessive dismissals, pressure, etc. Everything ended with the conviction of the company administration and the acquittal of the air traffic controller.

I cannot say that there was a similar situation with us, but everything led to the possibility of error. The company at the time denied the presence of fatigue and viewed air traffic controllers as a kind of caste of black workers who have to do their jobs. They are sometimes compared to beer bottlers.

– In April 2019, was there a near-tragedy over Marijampolė, when almost three planes collided, and was it related to the great fatigue of the air traffic controllers? What happened there then?

– Yes, it was related to the great fatigue of the air traffic controllers. The tired air traffic controller did not identify a potential conflict in time and reacted too late. Too late to react, he had very little time to hand over command to the pilot and got out for the planes to approach.

This was quite a dangerous situation, since the speed of the planes is about a thousand. km / h, this reaction time for us to react is short enough. In general, the average flight of a plane through Lithuania is about 15 minutes, so our air traffic controllers work very hard.

It turned out that the planes were finally separated by technology. If the situation is not handled by the air traffic controller, then it is the technology that takes over, because one plane technically communicates with another and sees where you are. In a conflict situation, if the human factor is slow to make a decision, the computers communicate with each other and tell one to get up and the other to let go.

At that time, HE Oro Navigacija was headed by the former manager and it was this situation that motivated the Ministry of Transport and Communications to listen more to the information about the constant fatigue that air traffic controllers constantly bring. It was a turning point that helped move the ice cream.

– Taking charge of a company when it is in an internal crisis and threatened by a pandemic in the world is not easy. How then did the employees react to the new manager, because it was probably first necessary to gain the trust of the employees?

– I think I already had the trust of the employees, because before I worked in this company for two years. For about a year, I was an advisor to the CEO on national security and corruption, and my goal was to identify threats to the company. During this, I became familiar with the employees, the activities of the company, and felt internal problems. Later in the year, I worked as the head of the company’s safety and security department.

Until then, the company lived under great oppression, where until Friday we laughed, it was even a laugh, always forgiving something. Employees rejoiced at the mere fact that the ministry stepped in and beheaded.

And since I already knew the problems within the company, knowing what to do in the first steps was quite easy for me: eliminate the double and triple load. When it was removed, the weather changed us 180 degrees.

– You said that after taking over the management of the company, you have found some interesting things about the innovations implemented and planned. As I understand it, the decisions made by the previous government are not entirely justified. What did you see?

– I think this is an Achilles heel. The Achilles heel is that all companies have to follow the path of innovation and that is certainly something welcome and necessary, but innovation does not have to be an end in itself. If it is an end in itself, we simply bring a bone to the table, which does not create a result and nobody believes in that innovation.

In this place we had several projects that are innovative, but their execution went wrong. In air navigation, all decisions must be based on a safety assessment, and since we do not have the potential for error, all decisions must be weighed.

Suppose remote control towers. His project was approved last year, but it was approved without a safety study just to make it an innovation, and everything else was included in it. It turned out that without taking this step without pondering, the shortcomings of the project implementation arose. Due to those shortcomings, we have a lot of internal discussions at the moment about whether we should really move towards implementing this control tower project, and at this point I also need to convince the board that they understand that this step needs to be taken in a balanced way. There were many examples of such innovations.

Let’s assume a new 3D radio locator in Palanga. We don’t need it and it’s just a nice toy. It is more necessary for the military than for civil society. Also, there have been projects that have been implemented in the past and even though they are innovations, I cannot use them at the moment. We can look great on paper with innovations, but not in reality.

– But it’s just a waste of money.

– I think too.

– Looking at the whole situation regarding innovation and all the changes, can it be said that you are probably not a very comfortable guide for some people today?

– Yes, because air safety is in the public interest and, unlike the previous administration, my team will not make decisions without weight. We will do our best to provide services in an innovative way, but the innovations will be placed safely and we will not necessarily search for remote towers etc.

– How is the company today, what is its situation considering that aviation in general is not going through the best moments of today?

– There are no days for aviation, and Oro Navigacija, as a member of CANCO, fully supports and understands in principle the airlines that now all funds must be allocated to preserve them. As a result, we don’t really mind living on a tight belt for a while, and that can happen for two or three years. Sooner or later the planes will return, we just have to wait.

Now it is extremely critical to think very hard about where to invest the funds that we have, because there is work that we must do to ensure that safety is not compromised, because it does not matter if we have one plane or five, we have to ensure a safe flight for each. plane, but we also have to think hard. and where to invest thinking about the future.

– But is there something to invest in?

– There is and there will be, because we are preparing and submitting investment plans to Eurocontrol for approval.

Eurocontrol is an organization that manages all airlines. Monitor how we evolve, how our strategic plans of 5 years and more are established. And if you approve the investment plans and agree how much the flight over Lithuania will cost, then automatically “we have money from heaven” and we invest it ourselves knowing that the investment will be repaid.

Currently, there is a situation where some airlines pay us in advance for the services they provide, because they are the ones who hold us back and the state, at least for the moment, does not give us a penny. If we are huddled, we will ask the owner (Ministry of Transport) to increase the authorized capital by several million injections.

Like all air navigation companies, we had a certain financial pillow with which we currently cover most of our expenses. Right now, our situation is such that the financial cushion is stabilizing our situation sufficiently, and we still don’t need to take completely drastic measures: lay off all workers and close. We had about 20 million pillows. Eur, which we have not yet been able to return to airspace users.

For the sake of clarity, I will say that everything is planned for a period of 5 years, after those 5 years, if it turns out that we have a profit, the profit is included in the next 5 years for the airline tax reduction.

We have now borrowed money from Eurocontrol and we continue to analyze how we will survive in the future. Depending on the impact of this second wave, so will our reaction. We may have to cut administrative and not just personnel, we may limit ourselves to downtime, but we will need to find the funds.

– Can we, in principle, raise the question of the survival of the company in this place?

– It will survive because these companies are not created voluntarily by the states but under the Chicago Convention, where it has been agreed that airlines will emerge, which will be established in countries financed on the basis of cost recovery. Air navigation will remain in its present form or, in the future, somewhat different, as it gradually moves towards liberalization, bringing certain services to the market.

I have no doubt that we should talk about survival. We will remain, only the question of what size, how many employees.

– What is the current situation in terms of flights and what are the forecasts of when they could return to normal?

– The forecasts are quite pessimistic. It was assumed that in 2021. Flights will recover sufficiently in February, but now the forecast is that the number of flights next year could be only 50%. But there is really no oracle that knows what it will be like in the future, everything will depend on the vaccine.

Today we understand that for two to three years, we will be obliged to protect the company, and only then will we think of more continental innovations. Theoretically, 2024-2025. It should be easier for the airlines.