NATS £50 million BIG hole!

[Buster the Bear]

From the Independent newspaper:-

£50m hole shows up on Nats radar
By Clayton Hirst
15 June 2003


National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which just three months ago was bailed out by the Government, is again in financial trouble - with a £50m hole in its finances.

The troubled public-private partnership said the deterioration in the aviation market following the Iraq war, and the Sars outbreak, meant it had a £50m shortfall in revenues.

Nats - whose shareholders include BA, Virgin, easyJet and BMI - can recoup £25m from the airlines, but must find the rest through cost savings over 12 months. This is on top of the £200m in cuts it has pledged to make by 2005.

Nigel Fotherby, Nats' finance director, is heading a team reviewing ways to cut the costs. He is expected to report to the company's board within a fortnight. A company spokesman said redundancies and the scaling back of a promised £1bn investment programme had been ruled out.

But following Nats' financial restructuring - with the Government injecting £65m into the business and airports operator BAA becoming a shareholder - there is little financial slack within the business. One idea thought to be under consideration is to allow air traffic controllers to take up to three months' unpaid leave.

David Luxton, national secretary of controllers' union Prospect, said: "This is a huge challenge because so many of Nats' costs are fixed. It is difficult to identify areas of excess spend. However, the union is pleased at Nats' commitment not to cut jobs."

[bagpuss lives]

Will these stories ever come to an end? :(

[VectorLine]

One idea thought to be under consideration is to allow air traffic controllers to take up to three months' unpaid leave.

I know its not true - but I'd jump at the chance of a 3 month 'holiday' with a job to come back to! :cool:

How many of you would be up for it?

Just think - all the over time avaiable for the greedy ones!

[ferris]

If NATS was a private company, would it be allowed to keep trading? It must have the strangest looking balance sheet.

You might have Serco in there after all!!!!;)

[cossack]

Let me try and get this straight. :confused:
NATS have to save money but still reduce delays so they don't get fined.
You give a bunch of people unpaid leave to save cash. So you run short-staffed, flow control introduced to protect those left and the delays go up. So NATS loses money on the fines.
Or you pay people to come in on AAVCs to keep the delays down which costs the company more than having the people in in the first place.
Something a bit odd here I think. :confused: :confused:

[bagpuss lives]

Always remember what you were taught in NATS cossack - think what the most sensible and rational thing to do would be then do the complete and utter opposite :D

Those teachings should live long in your memory my friend :D

Good to see you still posting here too - it'd be a sad loss if you vanished from here as well :)

[2 six 4]

ferris

Surprise surprise NATS is a private company. My understanding is that until the financial restucturing a while ago it had been technically bankrupt since Sept 12th 2001. It was kept afloat by its shareholders ..... which is legitimate. Only thing unusual is that NATS major shareholder is HMG and the tax payer probably does not realise they have been keeping NATS going for 2 years.

Another £50m hole ? Oh well just throw some more taxpayers money into the hole. :{ :{

[Canoehead]

You guys must be over-staffed for the company to make such amazing propositons. Here in the Great White North (actually, 28 degrees and sunny!) we are so severely short that we have to restrict traffic almost on a daily basis.

[Topofthestack]

Great idea to let people have 3 months unpaid leave! One problem, won't they have to revalidate when they get back and won't it cost the company lots of money and resources to do this?:confused:

[Point Seven]

Canoehead

Believe you me, my moose hunting mate, we certainly ARE NOT well staffed, or at least not at the units that I know of.

Will these stories ever come to an end?

Yes, these stories will come to na end when NATS upper management finally realise what this comapny is actually about and get a grip of what goes on. This whole debacle has been ample demonstration to our grossly inept Government that the whole PPP thing should never have gone ahead.

P7:mad:

[bagpuss lives]

Point Seven - very very well said and I agree totally :)

[atco-matic]

What a good idea!! 3 months down the beach, and I'll come in for one days overtime a month to keep my validations!

Where do I sign?? :D :D :D