A planned nationwide strike by Russia's air traffic controllers that began at 10 a.m. Friday appeared to have fizzled by day's end, with only Murmansk airport confirmed closed as a result of the walkout.


Vladimir Pivnov, vice president of the Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Unions of Russia, which called the strike, claimed Friday that controllers at 10 airports, including the Moscow Air Traffic Control Center, had supported the strike.


But Vladimir Yegorov, director of the Moscow center, which handles all air traffic in and out of Moscow, denied that his staff had struck. "Our controllers are at their posts and working normally, and this facility will continue to work normally," he said.


"Flights are proceeding according to schedule. We sent [Prime Minister Viktor] Chernomyrdin off to the Nizhegorodsk region today. The union can distribute whatever information they want, but all the airports in Russia save Murmansk are working," Yegorov said.


Natalya Koroleva, a spokeswoman for the Transport Ministry's Air Traffic Control Commission, confirmed this. "There is no strike in Russia, and there will be none. Murmansk is the only exception. We have no information on striking air traffic controllers in any other city in Russia," she said.


In Murmansk, Vladimir Tsvetkov, a dispatcher at the airport, confirmed by telephone that flights had stopped. "The air traffic controllers are a separate organization, and we at the airport are just hostages of the strike. We're sitting around twiddling our thumbs," he said.


Only two planes had landed Friday, he added, one of them filled with campaigning politicians. "[Foreign Minister Andrei] Kozyrev is running for the Duma from Murmansk, and he's expected soon. I have a feeling the controllers will let him land," Tsvetkov said.


Representatives of major international airlines reported no interruption of their flights in and out of Moscow's major airport, Sheremetyevo-2, on Friday. Tatyana Shingaryova, a spokeswoman for Transaero, which flies widely within Russia as well as overseas, said all the airline's flights had proceeded as scheduled.


Yelena Fomina, a spokeswoman for the Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Unions of Russia, explained Friday evening that there had been problems with the strike at the Moscow center, but promised that "during the night [from Friday to Saturday] the controllers will begin a total strike that will close Moscow to all but emergency air traffic."


Over 90 billion rubles ($20 million) is owed to Russia's air traffic controllers, the federation estimates. "We just want what's owed us, not an increase in salary," Pivnov said.


Yegorov said controllers at the Moscow center receive an average wage of 3 million rubles, and that only one minor delay in payment had occurred.


The federation issued an appeal to Russians on Thursday, in which it attempted to justify the strike. "Citizens! When you fly today your lives (if they could be assessed in monetary terms) are not worth a kopek," the appeal said, criticizing the government for its neglect of the airline industry.