Brazil's air traffic crisis was aggravated on Tuesday when at least 120 flights were delayed in Sao Paulo's airport.

 

The delay was due to the slowdown operation by staff members of the Air Traffic Control Center (Cindacta 1) in the country's capital city of Brasilia.

 

After the collision of a jet with a commercial plane on Sept. 29, which was the biggest ever accident in Brazil's aviation history with 154 fatalities, police showed that a problem of miscommunication between an operator and the jet's pilots could have contributed to the tragedy.

 

The police's suspicion prompted a reaction from operators, who initiated the slowdown operation on Oct. 27, as a way to draw the public's attention to their working conditions.

 

Since the beginning of the slowdown, passengers had to wait 30 to 40 minutes inside airplanes until they got the permission to take off, and flights got delayed up to 3 hours.

 

At Congonhas airport, close to downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, 79 flights were behind schedule on Tuesday.

 

President of Infraero, which runs all Brazilian airports, Jose Carlos Pereira classified the situation as critical. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Pereira attended a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the crisis.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2006)